Nice Dream
by TuckerInLaw
Summary: The Doctor and Clara Oswald destined to meet each other one more time. But will they manage not to ruin the Universe when together again? [blind!Doctor, series 10]
1. Chapter 1

NICE DREAM

He breathed in the alien air as soon as he got himself out of the TARDIS. Hold it in his lungs, tasted it, waited, and only then puffed out through his nostrils. Smiled, as warm pleasantly tickled his hearts. It was nice to be on another planet, any planet which wasn't called Earth to be precisely – too much pollution and worry in the air. The Doctor stretched his hands n' legs in all directions, not giving a single damn what other people would think. By now, they watched him with a curious look, he had no doubt of that, wondering what exactly this mad man was doing in a crowdy open market on Zetta-2.95. Why, he was stretching and smirking and breathing and enjoying his holiday.

Official holiday, mind you, so very rare in the university he works.

His official holiday, as he would have put emphasis on every time Nardole had been trying to sneak into the TARDIS.

Have your own holiday and stop spoiling mine, as he would have told Bill later, hearing her voice from the second floor.

It would be less than a day for all of you, you won't even miss me, he'd assured them both, closing the door in front of their noses, putting the first planet he could have thought of in the TARDIS destination and crushing on the lever to finally hit the road alone before they could have stopped him.

The Doctor strolled through the open market streets, surrounded by countless aromas: spices, fruits, alcohol, some kind of metal accessories or maybe even weapons, wooden wardrobes, sweaty bodies, sweets and dozens of dozens more as he was heading to the center of all of them. He already got lost the direction where he'd landed, his head was heavy, dizzy, almost as if he was drunk. He was overwhelmed with emotions. The Doctor smiled relaxedly, listening to the never-old music of every market in the Universe – chatters, whispers, bargains, flipping of coins. He had been right to come here.

Zetta-2.95 was good as ever, even though he couldn't see a bit of it.

* * *

"Aye, does that thing suppose to do that?" Bill asked him once, when he was playing guitar on the second floor of his beloved space-time machine.

The Doctor put the guitar aside, making sure it was stable enough not to fell on the ground, and appeared beside the console in one smooth way. He saw that there was some kind of flicker on the map. Bill pointed at the Hallam Street and gave him a look of excitement, hoping for an adventure – no more than a quick hop, the Doctor considered, but still a little adventure in her eyes. The dot kept flickering under her finger.

Interesting…

His first emotion was confusion. He barely recognized that little blue dot; he was staring at it with knitted eyebrows for whole 10 seconds, giving it this look and that, but it didn't ring a single bell of what it might be. But then again, you could hardly blame him for it, he didn't expect to see this kind of dot on Earth ever again. He thought the dot would think better than risking bumping into him.

"Shall we go and check?" Bill asked, anticipation all over her face.

Confusion turned to warm feeling in his hearts, and soon a little shy smile cracked on his face which he so desperately tried to hide.

"No. It's alright." He shook his head from side to side. It was perfect. If only he could get rid of Bill and go and check it alone… "By the way, why are you here at all? Shouldn't you be writing essays?"

Bill half-moaned half-chuckled. "I'm tired."

"Oh? You want me to give you one more 3000 words essay about tiredness?"

She put her hands in surrender and sighed heavily. "Alright. I've got your point." No adventures today.

"But you will tell me what was that, right?"

The Doctor chuckled. "Out of question."

"That's no?"

"No."

The Doctor waited for her to leave, fidgeting with pointless broken tumbler on the console panel. He was running out of patience and, when he finally heard the door to his office closed with a loud shut (probably intentionally so loud), he rushed to the navigation, put in coordinates, pushing buttons with such force they would not serve him another month; blood boiling in his veins, neurons sparkling with excitement – and stopped. Frozen on his spot. He was over flooded with emotions, felt warm flushing his upper-body and cold stoning his feet. He heard both of his hearts arguing whether or not he should do this.

She was here, on Earth. She did risk stumbling into him again, yes, but nevertheless she was here. And it was the first time he had seen her back on her home. The temptation grew even stronger as she was just in several miles away and now, not in another galaxy in 500 years. Oh, and how he would like to see her face one more time before her journey was over! To say that he remembered some parts of their adventures, to give a proper goodbye, to give a proper hug, to give a proper kiss, to see her smiling one last time because he had never got tired of that. Maybe to have a new adventure. Yes! One extraordinary adventure, one nice and unforgettable for both of them! One star for one impossible couple. Wasn't it what they wanted instead of pushing stupid buttons? Didn't they always get second chances?

But, some hidden part of the Doctor's mind stopped his trace. Wasn't that thing he was going to do wrong? He chuckled, more moral questions, just on time. Wonder what it's going to be today.

Weren't there suspiciously too many second chances for both of them? Wasn't it the time he should let Clara Oswald go, to terminate this obsession of impossible girl from Earth and just… let her be? This care hadn't ended good last time, almost destroyed the universe, didn't it? Left their hearts broken as well.

His eyes darted to the monitor. She was still there, still Clara Oswald. The woman who would never give him up, who would always trust and always forgive him no matter what, because he was the closest person to her, as she was the closest person to him. He couldn't just give up on her. He missed her.

Make up your mind, Doctor. Who knows for how long she was staying there.

Nardole rushed into his office, breathing heavily, the Doctor heard. "You have a lecture in one minute in another wing on the seventh floor, sir!"

The Doctor pushed down the space-time throttle as quick as possible before he changed his mind.

He used blue stabilizers for the first time so as not to make any sound when landing, he turned on a field making the TARDIS absolutely invisible – in one word, the Doctor made everything so Clara Oswald wouldn't notice him at the start. He wanted this to be a surprise, he wanted to pretend this was nothing but a mere coincidence. But then again, how naïve he supposed she was to believe such a story?! No, the Doctor chuckled, she wouldn't believe him. Of course she wouldn't.

He hold his breath, eyeing the street through the monitor. He couldn't see her TARDIS anywhere, perhaps, it was hidden as much as his. Was she inside or outside? There was no one like Clara, the street was almost empty because everyone was working, so where was she?

Anticipation stuck in his throat, the Doctor searched every corner of the street. He waited, but still there was not a single clue of her. Maybe his machine was faulty, some components of scanning system were rusty after decades of service. Maybe it was nothing but a program glitch. Maybe once again he was foolish and emotional. He touched a button, rescanning the area. The dot was still there, indicating her TARDIS, barely in front of him.

The Doctor held his breath, considered what he should say when he saw her, disheveled his hair excitedly and opened the door outside. Peered out hesitantly, but, seeing not a trace of her or her TARDIS, closed the door.

He punched the console angrily but lightly, as you would do when you see a frozen screen while browsing the Net. C'mon, what's the matter with you today, love?! The dot sparked once, twice, three times, he was comparing it with what he was seeing on the second screen showing the outside. He considered both screens with incomprehensible look. The scanner clearly saw her TARDIS, but the reality did not. Only he thought about looking outside again, when the dot vanished in front of his eyes.

His hand grasped his hair in a tight hold. What?! Oh. He checked the time when the dot had actually disappeared. It had been eight minutes ago. So she had been here, her TARDIS probably had dematerialized without a sound when he'd landed; it was just that… he'd messed up with time. Maybe it was because of his lack of concentration, while he had been all excited 'bout meeting her again; more likely it was because his TARDIS needed recalibrating and he was avoiding it for a very very long time.

He gritted his teeth, his knuckles white from tension. Did it really matter what was the reason of his mistiming?! He failed once again, just like when he'd let her die in the Trap Street.

The Doctor pushed the time-space lever down silently. Where was it, in another wing on the seventh floor, yeah? His shoulders slumped, hairs in a crazy state. When the TARDIS made a loud tut, he obediently forced himself outside.

In an enormous auditorium all eyes darted on him when the Doctor exited the blue box, which materialised out of nowhere in the middle of a lecture hall. He didn't care about what students would chatter about lately, how he magically had made some strange blue cabinet turn up on a stage. He sighed vanquishedly.

Well then, Doctor. Time to brace yourself and do your job.

"Let's talk about lost hopes, broken hearts, procrastination and the key role of time in all of it." With those words he had fished a marker out of his pocket and started the lecture.

* * *

The area of market where he was now – wherever it was at all – smelled of fried fish. It definitely was nothing like a fish, probably tasted worse than fish and had nothing to do with fish at all. Still, he liked it. It was a strong smell, itching his nose, making his stomach grumble as if it was the central gate to Hell. Probably he had more those annoyed glances by this time. But again, he didn't care. Not like they would throw him into prison for being hungry.

His tummy cried out for help. How long ago had he eaten properly? Was it yesterday or the day before? You can never tell when the day light and the night light are all the same for you.

No, he couldn't just bite into things he liked the smell of. As he reminded himself, it could be anything, he might be poisoned. It would be rather hard to go back to the university being dead, wouldn't it? Almost impossible. Nah, no food unless he saw it.

The Doctor chuckled. Unless he saw it was equal to not at all in this incarnation, which could possibly be forever. He sighed heavily and heard his breath reverberating through the street like it was the only thing for kilometers.

The Doctor scowled. He tried to find with his left hand some market stall but there was none. His hand touched rough surface of a wall, all in cracks and rips. He tried to search for something with another hand only to find a wall of another building in two meters. But the sound of the market was so close… Meaning, it was a trap street and he accidentally found it. Huh, that happens.

He heard a rustling somewhere ahead of him. Probably should leave it. He had already turned backwards when he heard something which sounded like crying and moaning. The Doctor didn't like the sound of it, not only because it was someone old, but because this someone sounded desperate, in need of help.

So, guided by the wall under his hand, the Doctor moved to the stranger.

"WHAT. YOU. LOOK. AT?" a deep voice asked him unkindly.

Hmmm. The way TARDIS translated it and the way the voice took a breath before pronouncing each of word, it could be strakokkonians, brute aliens with little arms and one long extra arm sticking out of the back. Probably female, but you can never be sure of that. Of what the Doctor was assured now: he/she needed no help from him. Strakokkonians' idea of food was somewhat… perverted, if you can call eating any race that wasn't theirs strange thing.

"I'd like to know that myself," the Doctor shrugged innocently and attempted to back away, only to bump into someone's chest.

"HU-MA-AN. TROUBLES," the one who was behind him groaned unpleasantly.

"Oh no, sorry, you see, that's where you're wrong. I'm not a human, I'm a Time Lord," the Doctor tried another way to retreat only to find out he was surrounded in a tight circle of four strakokkonians.

"IT. BRING. TROUBLES." He could hear someone split on his shoe. That was rude. But he decided against voicing it up.

"Ah, look. I see, not literally, where this is going and I don't want to be a part of it. But I'm blind, that's not what I usually admit I must say. I'm blind and I haven't got the faintest idea of what you've been doing here. I also see no way to escape you, fine fellows. So, if we could bargain somehow..."

"NOT. BARGAIN."

"HUMAN. NO. TROUBLES. NO."

"Yes! Listen to your fellow, he has a good point!" He felt his stomach frozen as they laughed loudly.

"NO. HUMAN. NO. TROUBLES."

The Doctor took another try to rush away, to break through the circle but it was too tight and he couldn't see where he was going. Some of strakokkonians experimentally pushed him back, then the Doctor exhaled sharply as another brute was a little bolder than the first one and kicked him in stomach. Playing with food was their famous ritual, to show their dominance over a weak. But they were hungry, probably hadn't eaten as much as a chicken with artificial intelligence. After some of them dared to smash his nose, his forearm stung with severe pain. The same pain clung to his leg, sharp teeth tearing his skin. They let him crush on the floor, not quite letting him.

And when the Doctor prepared himself to be hurt somewhere else, it was over. Strakokkonians ran away in all directions, and just as they did something heavy fell beside him.

He saw a faint silhouette rushing to his help before he passed out.

* * *

"Past or future?"

"It's all irrelevant, Doctor. You've got something on your mind already. I know you have. Making me believe it's my choice won't work this time."

He'd tried to hide his smile (how smart she was, this girl!) but she quickly had passed beside him, making it impossible. Then, their eyes had locked on each other, and he'd found her not cross at him; she simply had been smiling, too.

"So what's on your mind, old man?" she'd asked him, her hand gripping space-time throttle behind her back.

"Something you'd like, Clara." The Doctor'd let her push the throttle down.

It's not nostalgia.

Nostalgia is a word for something you can easily reconstruct. It would be appropriate to use when talking about films or good books, adventures. You will never identify nostalgia as something bad, it's just something that brings back good memories when you walk down that street or when you see that face. Nostalgia means you've left something in the past and let it go. You extract memories from your mind palace with ease. It's not haunting you, it's not chasing you in nightmares, it's not in every step you make, in every sip of breath you take.

Miss, on the other hand, is a strong feeling. You miss something that you're not ready to let go and yet somehow you should for your own sake. Miss is a thing that looming in your heart, the thing you're scared of the most. You don't know how far you would go to stop missing… or rather you know but don't want to.

The Doctor missed and it hurt, because he was confused of what he missed in the first place. All that was left after neuroblock were complicated feelings. Short retold story of their adventures by someone who was late for work and was in hurry. He knew how she talked, he knew how she looked or how she could smile sadly. He knew she was important for him. But there was barely anything to miss. And it scared him the most.

He couldn't control it. He couldn't stop missing.

And it was different. Not because there was something special about her or she was a little bit more important than Rose, than Martha, than Donna, than Amy, or than so many more before. Neither because it was a fresh wound, that she was one more cut on his hearts to stitch.

She was still somewhere out there.

Of course, as the Universe didn't collapse it meant she had returned to Gallifrey at some point.

But he could reach out to her for some time, for now. He could pick any dot indicating her location and time and let her pour into his life once again. Maybe he already had done that, in the future, and those planets she'd been visiting not alone but with him. He could risk checking his theory.

He could risk so many things to see Clara Oswald one more time.


	2. Chapter 2

Sometimes, he would watch a dot appear at the scanner and then he would wonder what she's got herself into this time. Always, he would fight a will to go and check himself.

But so did she. Not as often as him because now he had another duties as a professor in a university (not like she knew anything about that), and he stayed most of the time there, she could see him on a radar just every time he caught a minute to sneak away. She would watch a familiar TARDIS pop up here or there, stay for some time, letting her owner do what he must do, and then come back to Earth. Back to Earth! How strange it sounded! As far as she knew, the Doctor wasn't a great fan of anchoring and having a peaceful life, not even on his original planet. He must have changed a lot since she had seen him last time.

Last time had been ages ago, and as he had changed, Clara Oswald, his companion, had too. Gone was a mortal teacher from planet Earth, now she was something completely different. Completely strange and alien. She need no sleep, no eat, drink could not affect her even slightly, she couldn't hear a heartbeat and even a simple familiar breathing was nothing but a habit – that last one was the only thing she could call human in her. Ashildr told her to relax, she was a super being now, immortality was her superpower. Aren't human obsessed with comics? Don't they all want to be Batman just for a day? Of course they are, and yes, they do.

"Then be a hero just for a day before you vanish." Ashildr smiled. "Be him, while you go the long way round."

And there was a tiny truth in her words. She owed this Universe so much, she should pay a debt before she disappeared. Not because she must. It's certainly not obligation. Because she was who she was, Clara Oswald, and she liked helping others.

But nobody said it would be easy.

* * *

"Maybe you should go?" Ashildr said, kneeling before the console panel. "I'm not very good at barging. And we need money more than ever."

Clara smirked. Wee old viking refusing to talk with people – now that was something that never had happened before. In fact, on a good day she wouldn't have stopped chatting with strangers, and that had been just embarrassing – and the reason they'd got kicked off of several planets. A girl gave her a pleading look from beneath the console, and she just couldn't help herself but smile.

"Admit it. You just don't want to spend hours and hours under the blazing sun in search of gold in one of the biggest open market in this zone." Clara chuckled, shaking her head.

"Sounds like you do." Her eyebrows twitched. "I can't deny you the opportunity to tan at least a little."

"Ashildr–"

"Me." The girl corrected, giving her a glare.

" _You_. Do you happen to remember who saved our arses that time we got into the sontaran's fleet circle?" She asked nonchalantly.

"Well, what if I do?"

"You said 'I owe you my life'."

"Which is, let's all admit it, a wacky expression to use."

"Nevertheless," Clara pointed out, "you used it. You owe me. And here's your chance to pay off your debt. C'mon, off you go. You know what the gold is and how it looks like. You're a viking after all."

"And I also know that the real gold is rare to find here. It's like going to Walmart to buy a gum!" Ashildr moaned, getting up unwillingly. Wearing a long face, she sighed dramatically. "I so hate you."

"No, you don't."

"You chose this planet."

"You broke takeoff stabilisers."

"Oh, you!.."

"Such an arse, I know that. I used to work in school, anything you say was said before."

"Alright!" Ashildr tsked. "I'll see you when I see you." She went away with a loud smack on a door. Such a childish act for the old viking. Perhaps, under this veil of weariness, she was a child after all.

* * *

"So what's on your mind, old man?" she asked him, her hand gripping the space-time throttle behind her back. Anticipation boiling through her veins, she caught a little sparkle in his eyes; that little sweet sparkle bonfires every time he thinks she doesn't look.

"Something you'd like, Clara." The Doctor nodded towards her back where the space-time throttle was. She pushed it down with excitement.

"Would I? Did you try hard?" She asked him perkily. "Or am I so easy to impress?"

"Yes." He gave her a thin smile.

"Yes what?"

"Yes." She rolled her eyes on that nonsense.

"You just don't want to hurt my feelings."

"Yes." He shrugged nonchalantly. As his smile widened playfully, she knew he was only half-serious.

"So you say it's something I'd like?" she asked, her mind came up with a wicked game to play. Not to take a revenge, no, that was never about revenges with them. Just to occupy some time before they land. Just for fun.

"Yes," he said, leaning back into the jump-seat.

"Is it something marvelous?"

She could see the Doctor liked her idea; he folded arms on his chest and gave her a short nod. "Yes."

"Something breath-taking?"

"Yes."

"And definitely safe to be? In a relative way, of course."

"Yes."

"Can we get into trouble?"

"Yes."

"Can I hug you?"

"Ye… no!" His eyes doubled in size as the Doctor's hands alertly rushed up in the air. There was no way to escape from his place, she was right in front of him with a wide laughing smile.

"Gotcha."

He shook his head.

"Never put your defenses down with impossible girl," he grumbled, eyeing her from toe to head. She leaned back on the console panel frame, never leaving her eyes from him. "Well?"

"Well what?" She put the most innocent face on, knitting her eyebrows together just for the effect.

"Aren't you going to torture me?" The Doctor asked, resting on the seat. He wanted that hug, everything in him just screamed he wanted more than a mere hug. But it was a game, and she always won them.

Having rounded the heart of the TARDIS, the console between them, Clara smirked. "Do you want me to?"

The Doctor chuckled, leaping lightly from his place.

"Do you want me to say 'yes'?" He checked the approximate time of their landing, drawing the screen closer to him.

"No, not 'yes'. 'Maybe' will be enough."

He analysed her words thoroughly, his mind was on fire. C'mon, make up an answer, Doctor, and let it be a good one.

"Perhaps," he said finally, not without that hint of proud in his voice. Well, she must give him the credits, it really had been a good answer.

So Clara opened her arms welcomely, and for the rarest time he made the first step, embracing her like a bear, yanking at her shoulder blades as if he was falling. She rested her chin on his shoulder, inhaling the alien scent that she could only identify as him.

"You make me feel funny, Clara." His muttered words tickled her earlobe.

"In which way?"

"Inadequate way. It feels…" She waited for him to find a proper word describing his current mood. Something told her she was feeling the same, he made her feel inadequate, too, and it felt… "good."

"Do you mean to say you love me?" Clara asked without a back-thought. She just couldn't help it. They were done with lies, weren't they? And this was just a question. Just a check. It's okay to ask questions, the answers don't mean anything, smiles merely do, it's the actions that speak for themselves. And if talking about actions, well, he had proved that he loved her long ago.

She literally felt him smiling in her ear, still trying to hide it from her.

"Why, does it matter?"

"I don't think so. But it would be nice to hear it from you anyway."

"That I love you?" He chuckled, his warm breath lightly ruffled her hair. "Nah, don't be ridiculous! I love a sun on my back, the infinite number of stars, a good pun, when my guitar's tuned and a marvellous strong cup of tea. I certainly do not love you. I just can't put you in this list. I hope you don't love me, too, that would be so rude."

"What do you mean?" Clara pulled back, confusion was all over her face. He barely made a sense.

"Love is simple. Here, I can show you." The Doctor suddenly dashed towards the blackboard on the second floor, beckoning her with his hand. Hesitantly, she followed him.

"You human lot exaggerate it. This…" putting a tongue between his teeth, he wrote 'hormones', 'personal preferences' and 'attachment', circled each of them and connected together. "… is your love." He gave her a quick peek, just checking if she was listening to him. She was, a thumb between her teeth. "Of course, the scheme is quite primitive, but so is love. I won't go deeper explaining every aspect of it, what hormones, what preferences, what kind of attachments, actually, as a teacher, you must know where I'm going with it. You get to know some person, you get attached to some person, then your endocrine system says 'Hey! You're not getting any younger with every passing day. Let's coopulate with this chap, he/she's your best friend I think he/she won't mind it.' You see, love is quite the same as like. In our case, loving another being is just an excuse for invading personal space. Love doesn't mean a thing, even when it's a mutual feeling, because love is relative. You can love someone more than the other. You can make yourself love another person. Hell, one day you might stop loving that person. You can fake love! Love can delude you and make you do wrong things with a wrong chap. When you say 'I love you' and don't get it back, you become sad. Love is an excuse for a shag. So, again, Clara, my Clara, answering your question: no, I certainly do not love you. Love is for primitives. So, here's a question for you: do you love me?"

"I… am confused. If I said 'yes', I would offend you. And if I said 'no'… Sorry, human brains, not very clever." She smiled bitterly, biting her lower lip. What was he talking about?! That he didn't feel anything for her? But that would be a lie, a rude lie and she would know it. No, this was something different. This was the first time they faced the feeling they shared, and the Doctor actually was trying to explain it using a blackboard. And it seemed she was the only one not getting it.

"But you are. Clever. I know you get my idea, it's just a matter of asking right questions." She hadn't noticed until now that his excited face got closer and he was on the same level with her.

"Right. So if you don't love me, then what do you do?"

The Doctor squeezed her hand in his own, finally receiving the right question, as he would have said.

"I care. And before you say anything, yes, care is far much stronger than 'love'. It's not controlled by hormones, personal tastes or any such thing. You can fall in love with a person within five minutes, but you can't care for a person you've only met. In fact, it needs more than a month, sometimes even more, to understand whether you really care for her/him."

There was something naked and hypnotizing in his eyes, she couldn't pulled herself back from them. The Doctor made a pause, just to gain his breath in lungs and thoughts together. His hard grip on her hands became less firmer. And when he proceeded talking, she could feel his fast-paced pulse on his wrist.

"Right now, I'm confessing in something more important than Hollywood clichés, fancy words, excuses for sex. It's not an emotion, Clara. It's not a promise you can easily break. It's not a feeling. It's not something you will shout to the whole world in a moonlight being all naked and playing the ukulele, because it's something sacred. Because once thought the words are with you forever. Once said, you can't take them back, it becomes your duty. Clara, I have a duty of care of you. I know, it doesn't sound beautiful. I know if I ever said 'I love you' it would be more dramatic. But it is what it is. I care for you, and I know you care for me, too. Do you really think that we need words, terms and blackboards to know that?"

"No…"

The TARDIS loud landing interrupted her, and with it the Doctor dropped her hands, lightly patting her shoulders after.

"Good. I'm glad we've settled it. Now, Zetta-2.95!"

He dashed towards the door, gripping her by upper-arm and dragging down with him.

"Doctor!" She made him stop before they left the TARDIS.

"Yes?"

"I won't forget it."

The Doctor nodded. "I won't, too."

* * *

It was nice to be on Zetta-2.95 once again. The smell, the view, the alien-ness of surroundings. Angry buyers and even angrier sellers. Soft gold sand under your feet and deep blue sky above your head. The tranquility under the blazing sun despite hot atmosphere, literally and figuratively. It hadn't changed a bit. She'd have liked to roast while searching the gold they so needed, the place had so many cuddlesome memories that were just so tempting, but she had thought twice before stepping out of the TARDIS. Clara knew out of experience that humans were disliked on this planet. Very much disliked. And as she wasn't against a sip of nostalgia, she had no will to repeat everything on her own. It would have been unlikely to get her arse out of troubles without the Doctor.

So here she was, sitting at the bar, sipping icy sweet lemonade through a straw, watching passing shopping chaps behind the window through her shades. So unlucky they were, those poor guys. Or rich. It didn't matter on Zetta-2.95 who you were, everyone was treated the same (except for humans). Everyone was welcomed (except for that said human race). As far as she could remember, the Third Great Human Colony had put a blockage on this planet, no way in, no way out, economic had been down a drain, so Zetta-2.95 had to capitulate. Since then, every bar and every respected shop put a warning sign that humans would rather go and shop somewhere else.

Actually, that long time ago, the Doctor had wanted to show her Zetta-3, the planet he had described later as the most bizarre place in the universe, green and that sort of things. Must have jumbled the name, he'd said then. However, when she had tried to go to Zetta-3, it appeared the planet did not exist. What a truly bizarreness.

Clara smiled sadly, putting the lemonade aside. Funny, she had promised herself she wouldn't go too sentimental. But once thought, it was impossible to stop the flow of memories.

He had said 'you're so human' then. Such an innocent expression, but that last word had put them in troubles. As if there had been a fire, everyone had started to shout that she's a human. The Doctor hadn't understood it then; you can hardly blame him, sometimes he doesn't know everything in the universe. They had understood it when they'd been imprisoned.


	3. Chapter 3

The space around him smelt dirty and damp, the floor under his cheek rough and edgy. A dungeon? Quite possible, albeit not quite clear how he had got himself here. He had been on the street, right, and there had been those brutes, and then something had scared the hell out of them and they'd left him alone. Thus, police had arrived. There wasn't much anything that could make them stop. But why hadn't the police arrested strakokkonians? Why him? Was it because they had assumed he was a human?

He was trying to get up when someone's gentle little hand made him stop: moving and thinking at once. That's what really was frustrating while being blind. Nothing exists around you, your body too. There's only one little area around your head. And you're not always sure it exists too.

"What are you doing? Whatever it is, I wouldn't advise you doing that," the male harsh deep voice said. "It's stopped bleeding, but you're bruised badly everywhere."

He rejected the hand and got up on his legs, the space around him was a bit wobbly and unstable, he quickly grasped the rocky surface of the wall. There wasn't anything that could give him a hint where he was, except for cold wet air.

"Where are we?" the Doctor asked. He tried to make a step, but his legs weren't strong enough to walk; just in time he clinged onto the wall for dear life before he could fall down.

"A prison," the man said, sitting still where he was and not trying to help him. "They've found you in a trap street with a full bag of drugs. A thing they could have forgiven you, but then you appeared to be a human."

Yes, now he remembered: something heavy had fallen beside him when brutes had been running away. Must be it.

"Actually, I'm not a human," he smirked.

"Neither am I. But it didn't matter much what I told them. Weird chaps, heh?"

The Doctor touched a leg where he had been bitten: it felt much better but still needed some time to heal. If he was in the TARDIS, he could examine whether the wounds were lethal or not and maybe patch it up in the medical bay.

"They confiscated your funny devices. They said you had run away before."

"Did I?" The Doctor said with undoubtful smirk. "I don't remember much of it." But he certainly had to escape it the second time. "The lock, what does it look like?"

"Sorry, not my area of knowledge."

"Just describe it to me."

"Can't you just go and see it yourself? Do you have to be so bossy?"

"Yes, I have. As you can clearly see I'm not in a good mood to look at locks. What's your name?"

"…John," the voice said uncertainly.

"What a good name. John, you see, there are times like this when I don't look at locks especially if somewhen in the past I've already looked at them. I find it boring."

"It's flat, no visible bolts, no keyhole–"

"Have we ever met?"

"No, why?"

 _Your voice sounds familiar. But we'll see if I'm right or this is just another false sense._ "I used to have a friend called John. Sorry, please, continue."

"There's nothing. Not a clue for how to break free."

"Hmm. And no windows…" he said gravely with a little hint of question.

"I think we're under the ground. There shouldn't be any."

"So how did I make it before?" The Doctor asked himself.

But more importantly, why had he been imprisoned in the first place?

* * *

 _It was a quick peck on a cheek, that kind that was light but would warm till your bones. It was automatic, innocent gesture, that she had always wanted to reward him with. And his speech about love and care just made her a bit braver, a bit reckless. She didn't expect him to pull away as if he was burnt. Or rather she did, but until the very last moment hoped she understood him right._

 _Clara could see him blushing, and trying to hide his reaction from her. She felt awkward. What had gotten into her?! She thought it would have been nice to show him that she liked the planet despite it wasn't what he wanted to get? She could well damn voice it. Gosh, now she ruined it all!_

" _Sorry…" Clara said, awkwardly trying to look at anything but him._

 _However, when she dared to glance at him she didn't expect to see his face so soft. He was smiling, that little special shy smile, and she knew everything was alright. They were alright, they could do that._

 _The Doctor chuckled. "You're so human."_

" _Aye, I am human!"_

" _How could I forget." He rolled his eyes. "But, please, warn me next time you want to do something like this."_

" _And what if I want something different?"_

" _You still need to warn me. Clara, I'm…uh… awkward. Right! Let's imagine two mature wise people that care for each other or love, it doesn't matter how you call this thing, or let's not imagine, let's be them, what I mean is we already are those people, and it's good, there's definitely nothing bad about it, but just let's imagine, or… or not?" The Doctor pinched a bridge of his nose. "There's a couple. Just a couple of two mature beings. One of this couple is alien to another, but he knows how relationships work on her planet. He thinks it's not perfect, it has some twists and turns, it has some strangenesses and its moments, it even is kind of beautiful, nevertheless it's all alien to him. Sometimes, he might feel awkward and don't know what to do… basically, it's like puberty, no, no, no, it's not, sorry, forget what I've said… What I'm trying to say, Clara, what I'm really trying to say is that he's afraid of so many things doing wrong and he's absolutely confused and–"_

" _You're not very good at relationships."_

" _I'm not very good at relationships."_

 _Clara beamed at him with smile._

" _Complicating simple feelings. So Doctor!"_

" _Simplifying complicated feelings!" The Doctor groaned. "So… Clara!"_

" _Aye! I've only gave you a peck, and you've gone all red from tip to toe and started freaking out. I've barely done anything."_

" _But in my culture you have."_

" _I hope it's nothing really rude."_

" _Otherwise. Sorry, I might need some time to get used to that."_

" _Okay. It's nothing."_

" _Excuse me, did you say she's a 'human'?"_

* * *

Clara was getting nervous. Ashildr should have shown up at least about two hours ago, and now was coming the third, and she still was somewhere there. Clara got back to the console where she found the manual Ashildr and she used for repairs. There was one feature they promised to each other to never use except for emergency.

"Right," Clara breathed through her nose. "I think it's quite emergent."

* * *

"What's wrong?" The man asked him suddenly.

The Doctor was fidgeting with the lock but there wasn't anything that could give him any hint to how to unlock it. If only there was some easy way out, maybe a secret passage or something like that. "I can't open it. It's very frustrating if you want to know."

"I'm not talking about the lock."

His eyebrows knitted together in confusion. Really? "Oh? There is something more important than it?"

"Yeah, you."

That got his attention. "Oh?"

"You look lost. Very lost. And lonely."

"And you look… emmm…" _Well?_ "… gorgeous."

There was a bit of silence, as if the man was thinking over his words and carefully planing what he should say next.

"Look at me again." The man asked him.

"Sorry, what?"

"Just look at me."

The Doctor sighed in frustration, he didn't like the way their conversation went. He could hear the guard passing somewhere close and he only hoped he had a good mood today.

"You know what they'll do to us if we don't get out now, don't you?" The Doctor whispered.

"Nothing." He could practically hear the innocent shrug John made.

"They will send us to the nearest human colony. And, if I'm not mistaken, it's Alendrona. You know, a small planet named after their first tyrant, she had enormous ego. There, they will try to identify you, and if they fail, they'll send you to another colony, close enough, where you'll spend the rest of your life mining. I don't want that, neither do you, except if you do, so please keep talking."

"Sounds like you had an experience." There was a little smirk in his voice.

"I've read it in a book. Don't remember reading it though…" he noted that to himself. "Probably read it after I was here the first time."

He heard John shuffling closer, so he concentrated on the lock again and hoped he was looking straight at it.

"What's taking you so long?" asked John. He was somewhat a few feet away. "When they took you here I thought it will be easy for you to unlock it."

"Why did you think so?"

"You made an impression. Look like a magician from a cheap fair."

"I do…"

He felt just on the tip of his finger some kind of a tab that needed just a bit of a force and longer and tinier fingers, it was probably nothing, but it was the first thing he found in the mechanism. He slapped his pockets in search of something needle-ish. If only he could give it a try, it might work. Yes! There it was! Probably a needle, it didn't really matter. The Doctor pinched it in the pocket and breathlessly withdrew it. He returned back to the lock but couldn't find that thing anymore.

"You're blind, aren't you?"

The Doctor lost his track.

 _Clever._ He just hoped that he wasn't so clever to notice his pulse fastening.

"It's just… umm…" The Doctor tsked. Why can't he just admit that? Why can't he just tell him that he's blind; John might help him with the lock. "I'm such a professional at pick-locking that I find it boring to even look at locks."

"So you are…"

"I don't have a reason to lie to you."

"Oh no, you!"

"I don't think we have any relationship to discuss my excuse in such tone–" Whatever it was, it made the man explode.

"I'm not talking about the crappiest excuse I've ever heard you've just given me! You're blind, Doctor!"

That made the Doctor stop from whatever he was about to say, he almost dropped the needle but caught it just in moment. He made sure that John, or whoever that was, could see his face when he turned from the lock.

"Say that again."

"You're blind!"

"No. Not that," he said firmly. "You know what I'm talking about. I've never told you my name, so you better explain yourself. I knew there was something off you, if only I could see I'd probably know what it is. So who are you exactly?"

"I won't say that."

"Why?"

"I think it won't do us any good."

* * *

Ashildr was strolling through market stalls but nothing looked even likely as gold. Jewellery – yes, some weird objects – checked, coins were made of silver. The last thing was very frustrating for Ashildr, as if the Universe was gloating at her.

However, when she saw a very familiar transport, she knew that a lack of gold on the market was nothing in comparison to this new problem.

"Oh, no," she gawked at the blue box in front of her.

Ashildr rushed into the diner calling for Clara. She feared the worst; if the Doctor was here, they needed to make sure he wouldn't stumble into her by accident.

"Clara! We need to–"

But Clara appeared to be missed. She looked for her in the TARDIS, but her search was fruitless.

Ashildr got back to the console where she found the manual Clara and she used for repairs. It was already opened at the only one feature they promised to each other to never use except for emergency.

"Right," Ashildr breathed through her nose. "I think it's quite emergent."


	4. Chapter 4

_AN: Very very sorry. Sometimes I'm being lazy and forget to post a new chapter here._

* * *

The Doctor stared at nothing in particular, flabbergasted that the man refused to unveil his real identity. It wasn't just suspicious anymore, the man really had something to hide from him, and, without any effort, he was doing it greatly. Without his sonic, nor glasses, the Doctor felt vulnerable more than ever, and that was not the feeling he was fond of. Also he was curious, and angry that John had lied. But he was weak, he couldn't make the game be played by his rules. Except…

"I give up." The Doctor almost smirked under his breath but resisted.

He felt the man itching to him closely. "I'm sorry?"

"I give up. I'm blind, and I really can't open the lock. Always knew that someday I'd visit Alendrona. Never thought it would be in chains."

"You can't be serious! You can't give up now!"

"Why not? Come here," he dared the man to get closer, "have a look yourself. All those mechanisms are tiny and slippy. You need to know what exactly you are doing to unlock it."

Definitely-not-John had fallen into the Doctor's trap, and when he got even closer, the Doctor wrapped his fingers on her wrist and was suddenly washed over with something he could not believe.

There were pictures. Lots and lots of them, changing in rapid motion, like a film unveiling to him, and each of the picture contained his image. He tried to concentrate on specifics. There, as he snatched a frame, he was smiling under the console, possibly making some calibrations to the TARDIS, and there, as he loose a film in his hand for a bit and squeezed it again, he was running, hand in hand with someone, and he looked joyous. There he was in someone's embrace, crying only half-serious for help because he didn't like her touching him. And there he was mourning for real over the poor soul he had failed to save, his face hidden in shadows but emotions drew from him in waves, and she was there, too, she felt it, she eased his pain. There he was explaining something, something important, to the person who was nonetheless important. And then he saw himself, looking awestruck, listening to something important from the said person.

And just then he remembered not only parts of it but everything.

"Clara…" He refused to believe that sick joke the Universe had just presented him.

* * *

"You're wrong. I am no Clara, I'm John." Even she could catch a break in her definitely feminine voice now.

His eyes were looking for something on the floor, like there was something that he accidentally dropped. On a good day, when his guards were down with her, it had meant he was carefully choosing his next words. When he finally found them, he heaved a long sigh. "I understand why you're lying to me. Because we shared too much. Because you think that your death will damage me. Because all of this should have never ever happened. But it is you."

She wasn't saying anything, just staring at him in disbelief. So, this was happening. It was all real. Not just another dream that would break into reality. The thing she was thriving for and daring not to ask for – their reunion. He was here, blind but nonetheless alive. And to her own stupidity now he knew who she was and, she felt it in her head when touched, remembered absolutely everything.

He grabbed her by shoulder, and it was probably the first time she looked at him properly. He grew hairs and got a few new wrinkles, but nonetheless he stayed the only person he'd been all the time and above it.

"Doctor," was the only thing she managed to say, knowing that resistance was meaningless and stupid now. She felt she needed to say something else but what could ever that be if they'd told each other all there'd been?! "I missed you."

He cracked a little smile that he forced to hide away with his hand. He touched his left temple and rubbed some circles into it, just making sure his memories will stay with him forever now, and shoved his hands away in his pockets. "I missed you, too, Clara Oswald."

* * *

 _"I so hate you."_

 _"Someone very wise has told me that someone even wiser and more successful than her told her that 'hatred is too strong an emotion to waste on someone that you don't like'."_

 _"Why? Why should you always repeat how human I am!"_

 _"Stop asking me obvious questions and start making up good ones!" The Doctor snorted. "Those that boost my ego and can be answered would be really appreciated."_

 _Clara rolled her eyes at that. "You're picklocking, Doctor. You don't need your ginormous ego for that. In fact, why won't you just sonic it?"_

 _"And where the fun would that be?"_

 _"There wouldn't." She sneaked into his inner pocket and retrieved the silver stick._

 _"Aye! Clara, don't you–"_

 _Too late, the lock clicked with a distinctive sound. He stared at her with a disheveled owl-ish look while she tucked the sonic screwdriver back into the pocket._

 _"I've just saved us our time. You're welcome."_

 _"You know what?..." The Doctor was saying when he was getting up from his knees._

* * *

"…I hate you…"

"Sorry, what?" Clara asked him, taken aback with his little smile.

"You didn't let me picklock it. Back then. I was so close to unlock it, and you'd just brutally soniced it."

"Oh. Sorry…"

"Clara, I'm not mad at you."

"No?"

He nodded.

"Sorry. I… I didn't… I mean I…"

"Suddenly lost control and the universe surprisingly didn't collapse." The Doctor chuckled lightly. "I know that feeling," Then his voice became firmer. "Clara, seriously, brace yourself. We have the door to unlock, that's all I want us to concentrate."

Surprisingly for him, her voice sounded even firmer than his. "You know how difficult that will be?"

She was here. How long did it take for their miracle reunion? He dared not to count. He got several little wrinkles and one quite deep, grew hair and even beard – twice. While he bet she hadn't changed at all.

"Clara Oswald. You don't need to tell me that," he said, already fighting his emotions back, willing his concentration return to the lock. "Now. I can feel a little doofer inside of it but I really don't know what it is and what it will do when I move it. But that's not the problem. The problem is I've lost it. And before you say anything, no, it's _your_ fault, if you told me the truth I wouldn't be bothered with a thought that you're a maniac or somewhat."

"You want me to peek inside and do it for you."

"Precisely."

"Then step aside. And give me that needle."

"Well?"

"I'm trying."

"Try harder; I really don't want to be stuck on a mining prison with you."

"And I thought you missed me." She chuckled lightly. Oh, he so forgot how he used to love when she did that. It was a bit of restrained, though; she took it very seriously when he told her to concentrate on the lock.

"I missed you. Very." He added because he wasn't sure that the word 'missed' was accurate to use. "But let's talk about that in the TARDIS."

"Sure. Mine or yours?"

"I-" He could remember several peculiar times she had asked him the same thing.

"Well?"

"Let it be yours. Honestly, I don't remember where I parked mine. Is Ashildr still on board?"

"Yep. Probably by now she's looking for me instead of gold."

"Gold?" His voice pitched in amusement.

"She broke takeoff-landing stabilisers."

"Sorry, why would you need a gold for?"

"To fix them. The manual says so."

"The manual?"

"Yep."

The Doctor almost choked over her word.

"Oh, no, no, no. You don't do that."

"Do what? Listen to what the manual tells you?"

"Exactly! The manual was written by the Time Lords. It's the most boring book you can ever read in this and all the other universes. It's always telling you what to do and what not to do. And when a book manipulates you, you must close it right away and throw it in space."

"This is precisely why you should read it, Doctor. You shouldn't blame the book for your graduation exam result."

That made him shut up and capture the air like a fish; he had several words in his mind but it was like he forgot how to speak at once.

"I've told you too much, Clara Oswald. And now you're using this information against me." The Doctor finally managed to say.

"I can't move it."

"Move what?"

"The tab." Ah, yes, he totally forgot about that. "And I can't see nor feel anything in the mechanism to move. Doctor, do you really not have anything sonic to unlock it?"

"I'm afraid no. They took everything from me." He hated hearing how defeated he sounded at that moment. Clara fidgeted somewhere closer, her breathing was almost tickling his face.

"Then what will we do? This can't be the only way out!"

His eyebrows deepened in a thoughtful planning.

"We can try and sabotage our export but I doubt it will be successful. If only I could see, then I might do some tricks to distract them or even immobilize them."

"Then why won't you regenerate?"

"Just to cure my eyes? That's irresponsible."

"Can't I help you? Somehow?"

"I can't steal your eyesight. I don't think it's even possible. Even if you're technically…" he went silent all of a sudden and gulped.

Clara knew, of course, he was about to say 'dead'. But as the time ticked he didn't find bravery to state it out loud. And his silence only proved her suspicions: the Doctor was still mourning over her death, after god knows how many years and days.

She stopped thinking about it long ago, it was hard at first time, but she accepted it, moved on, and she was only human, but he, he didn't, just couldn't accept that. It didn't matter how older he looked now nor how he tried to restrain the emotions boiling inside him. He looked so serene now but, when they got outside the cell, Clara was afraid he would crack, and she wasn't sure the Universe was ready for it for the second time.

"You meant to say 'dead'." She urged harshly.

His knuckles turned white at that. No, he hadn't changed at all.

Clara couldn't just say that it was all okay and she was here. No, hope was something so strong the Doctor refused to lose, and she couldn't give him something like it, not even now.

She was dead. No breath, no pulse. The temperature was a bit lower than normal.

She was dead. There wouldn't be a miracle, she would return back to Gallifrey and face her destiny no matter how the Doctor felt about it.

"You're not dead, Clara, not yet." He tried to sound calm but she could see through that. "And you might have your pulse back, for all I know."

"No, Doctor. I can't. We both know it."

"No, we don't." He almost lost it, almost, but easily put his voice back to normal. "We don't know how the universe works."

"It always works not in your favor, that's how it works, Doctor. Some things you can't change, but you need, have to accept them before they'll crush you."

"So you gave up on living?"

"Hush. I think I can hear something."

"Yeah, footsteps. Probably our friend." He dismissed that easily. "You didn't answer my question."

"I accepted than I'm dead and my time is up. I thought you learned something after the neural block blasted off in your face. Guess I was wrong!"

"At least I didn't cheat and reversed the polarity so!–"

 ** _"Aye! Shut it! I'm so sick of your human drama!"_**

Clara couldn't believe that. It was the voice of the guard, and very soon she saw four shadows standing behind the bars.

 ** _"You can continue it on your way to Alendrona. For now, just shut it!"_**

It was so quick. Just as they opened the door to the cell, the Doctor rushed from his knees and tried to, Clara had no idea what he had been going to try, it looked like ramming through them. Probably if he had seen them, he would have tried something different or not at all. They caught him, of course. One of them put something on his neck, and the Doctor, despite his resistance, closed his eyes, and his legs were left wiggling weakly.

She was next.

"You don't understand." She tried to bargain as they approached her. "We're not humans. He's the Time Lord from Gallifrey and I'm just a ghost in the shell. He has two hearts while I have none."

They didn't manage to break.

* * *

"Sorry, I think I misunderstood you, so let me clarify this. There was a nice petite girl, not a human at all, who has no heartbeat and no life hints, and there was an old scary insect man, not a human at all, who has two heartbeats and no social skills; and you what? Mistook them for humans and sent them to Alendrona for mining and rotting 'by accident'?"

"Yes. That's exactly what I told you and I'm very sorry. You can't help your friends, they're now halfway to Alendrona. Just forget about them."

"After I save them, you'll be so, _so_ sorry." Ashildr told the police officer.

She forgot to add that her TARDIS was currently damaged and that it would take some time to kick his arse.


	5. Chapter 5

The Doctor's head was throbbing and he had a strong feeling of nausea. He tried to open his eyes but it didn't matter even if they stayed closed, it was all blank. There was someone's hand on his right cheek, scratching his light stubble, and the rest of his head touched something soft and hard at the same time, he guessed it was a knee. He rolled on his back but felt as if the world was spinning around.

"Hey, take it easy." Clara's whispered voice. After all this time, he was finally in right hands to be.

"How did you do that?" The Doctor asked her, not without an amusement in his voice.

"Did what?"

"The male voice. Back in prison."

She chuckled lightly, and he felt her stomach clench in her laugh. Oh, how he thrived to hear her just like that some years and years ago. But what was so funny about his question?

Clara watched his facial expression turn into a question mode and she couldn't stop feeling a warmth spreading inside her stomach.

They were forced into, as the Doctor made it clear some time ago, one of the dangerous places, and he was asking her this.

"Skills." She smirked as the memory flooded her mind: Ashildr shouting in a brute voice at her that there's nothing hard about it, and her, doing the same thing some several difficult hours ago. The Doctor chuckled as he probably caught her thought somehow. "Ashildr taught me it out of boredom. It was one of the longest roads to another galaxy, we didn't have much to do. Played Monopoly. Had a breath hold competition…" The Doctor unpleasantly twitched at that. "What were you doing though? Ramming through guards, was that the best thing you could think of?"

"Um…"

"Yes?"

"I just thought that somehow it would help us."

"It didn't, Doctor. They knocked you out and you hurt yourself."

"That was stupid, wasn't it?" He sighed heavily.

"Yes, it was. Please, don't get yourself in more trouble. Not only you look like an old man, bumped your head, you're also blind. What if they know?"

The Doctor opened his eyes, and, if he could see, he would have stared at her chin.

"We fool them. They will never know."

Clara watched him from her position. He looked past her, his eyes were a normal color, a bit greyish blue. Perhaps, they would manage to trick their new guards, if they don't get close much. But, anyway, he would never trick her.

"Even now you look at me and you miss almost two inches from where my eyes should be," said Clara.

"Do I?" He smiled sheepishly and tried to correct his mistake. "And now?"

"Not much."

She caught his hand halfway to her face and gently rested it on her cheek. It ghosted her ear, thumb brushing lightly her lips, tickling her sensitive skin, and Clara inched closer to it, closing her eyes when his pinky almost hit her eye. But before she could snitch away from him, she only thought that he was going to scan her face with his hand and make himself look straight into her eyes to prove that they can actually get over with his blindness, she didn't expect him to close the space between them, aiming straight to her lips with his.

His touch, or to be more accurately, their kiss felt so wrong and right at the same time. Wrong because it was obviously the Doctor not admitting that she was dead and gone forever were their happy days. Right because apart from the Doctor himself she missed it, missed the way he nipped at her bottom lip, so lightly, like he was actually scared she was just a ghost, a fantasy of his, and was eager for more when he grew more reliant, she missed the way he used to deepen the kiss as the time passed, it was never enough for him when he had stopped being all shy and nervous – and she missed that, too, almost crying when he traced the line of her throat with his middle finger.

"Stop." Clara almost begged him, because quite frankly it was difficult for her to do so with his hands placed on her cheeks and literally restraining any movements of her.

And the Doctor did, lingering for some time and hesitating, breathing in unison with her, but he stopped.

"That felt quite lively for me." He chuckled.

"You shouldn't have done that."

"You haven't complained." A smug smile crawled on his face.

"I'm serious. We can't do this anymore."

"Give me at least one reason why not."

"Doctor, I'm dead." She almost whispered it, like it was something only for his ears and he had missed it some previous time ago and she didn't want to embarrass him in front of everyone.

"You're not."

She took his hand and put it on the back of her neck. To prove her point. To remind him. To ground him.

"I know that you can't see it, Doctor, but I know you can feel it."

Clara didn't need to watch his face become all gloomy and dark. He dropped his hand too sharply, touching the tattoo only for a second as if it burnt him.

"Clara, it doesn't mean anything."

"Oh, really? It's just a fancy tattoo, that's what you're saying?"

"I'll fix it. Just give me time."

"You can't." Her voice came out cold and firm, but she could see that it didn't put the end on their argument.

"Of course, I can. I know I can." His hand returned back to her cheek and traced the line where he expected the tears. There were none, not even a drop. "I had so many years, Clara. Do you think that I forgot you that I stopped caring about you? There's a way to fix it. There's always a way to fix it."

"You can't fix it, Doctor. Everything has to end. And I wouldn't like to die anything different. I tried to save one person, technically I did, but I made a mistake. I have to face that, my own mistake."

"You're dying because I was stupid to let you on your own."

"Remember what we discussed in the Cloisters?"

"That they'll all be looking at you?"

"You gave me hope, Doctor, that time is a soft material, basically like a gum you said, we just needed to do some adjustments. I knew little about time then, so I agreed. But now I know that time is far complex than a gum and you can't fix death. It might lead to Reapers, that's the best-case scenario. The worst – a paradox so big it can consume a third of the universe. And my life, Doctor, doesn't worth a third of the universe."

The Doctor became silent for a while, thinking over what she'd just told him. "You're right, you worth more…"

She didn't answer him that, rushing up from her place, the lack of her body made his head bump on the floor.

* * *

 _Clara pinned him to the console room, giving him a fair warning that this would happen the moment they enter the TARDIS for god knows how many times on their way back to her. Clara made absolutely sure he was fine with it, asking him if he was fine with this and that, giving some racy descriptions of what she'd like to do to him. He didn't complain or shied away. Nor made an inappropriate comment that would get them off the mood._

 _Just exactly what she wanted._

 _"Clara," he managed to say between their shallow breaths._

 _She gave a last quick kiss on his mouth and moved down to his neck, sucking there lightly, adding teeth._

 _"Okay?" she asked him for a check if she got his long moan which he embarrassingly muffled all wrong._

 _"Yeah. Just…" he gained some air before he could speak again. "Can we swap positions?"_

 _She chuckled and playfully pushed his wrists into the console panel. "Not today. I like you where you are."_

 _She didn't miss his throat contracting in a gulp and bite him there just so on his soft skin._

* * *

The Doctor knew what exactly made his Clara angry and leave him in absolute ignorance of the space around.

Because that kiss reminded her of too few happy days.

Because she was right and he was obsessed with her.

Because they can't argue forever.

Because they were pushing their limits, again.

Because he was selfish to let her go.

But he also knew that he would never agree with her on that matter, for them and for her own sake.

Clara was here, he could hear her breathing, still unstable from their little fight. Not real breathing, of course, a fake, just a habit, but it was real enough for him. She could talk and walk, she could argue with him. She wasn't dead, she was right here and right now, and he could feel a warm ghost of her lips on his.

Weren't there suspiciously too many second chances for both of them?

Perhaps, but even when she's dead, as she liked to remind him all the day, the universe, which would crack just like that if Clara didn't return to the Trap Street, still was giving them chances after chances.

Wasn't it the time he should let Clara Oswald go, to terminate this obsession of impossible girl from Earth and just… let her be?

Well, he hadn't been looking for his Clara. Technically, it was his holiday at the university.

Once he believed that, if he ever met her again before her last destination, it would be enough to give a proper goodbye, to give a proper hug, to give a proper kiss, to see her smiling one last time because he had never got tired of that, to have one last adventure. But those were times when he could hardly remember important parts when he barely remembered all the adventures they had together and could recall only about a dozen of them. Now was a different time. Now he could remember all of her.

The spaceship they were in was getting ready for the landing, the floor under his ear began to vibrate, and he heard Clara getting up and moving to him.

"Open your eyes." She told him as she helped him on his feet.

She was still here, still Clara Oswald. The woman who would never give him up, who would always trust and always forgive him no matter what, because he was the closest person to her, as she was the closest person to him. He couldn't just give up on her. She hadn't given up on him when he had been nearly dead when the Great Intelligence had entered his lifestream and tried to kill him all at once.

Even now, she was angry at him but helping.

"Clara..."

How could he let her die?

"I'll tell them that you have a bad eyesight." She touched the back of his head and tilted his neck just a little. "Stay your head like this and try looking at the floor. It'll look like you're in a deep thought."

"We'll get through this together, won't we?" The Doctor smiled sheepishly.

"It's not like there's an alternative. But yeah. Just stay close to me." She was still angry at him, he could hear it.

Then he felt her hand in his, gripping it strongly at first but loosing it a bit later. His hand didn't fit in hers, a miniature compared to his, so it moved down to his fingers and enveloped them instead.

"What's the planet like?" The Doctor asked her.

"Why do you care?"

"I've told you, I've never been on Alendrona. I'm curious."

"Small, roundish and dull. I hope they'll send us to something more interesting colony to mine and rot."

They took a tentative step when it was like everything inside him woke up at once only to concentrate on his left ankle, the Doctor tumbled with a moan.

"It's your bruises, right?" Clara was back to his side, he could feel her breathing close to his face.

"I'm okay, alright. It's just, my ankle. I think… no, don't touch it!" He tried to flinch away but…

Too late.

"It takes a longer time to heal." She had lifted the edge of his trousers enough to see a purple mark with a trace of teeth on the rim. "Let me see your forearm."

"My forearm?" He asked with alarm.

"When you were unconscious back in the prison I might have looked at all the bruises you had. It's not like they're invisible, Doctor. So don't pretend it doesn't hurt, too."

"Um. Well, it doesn't." The Doctor tilted his head in embarrass. He didn't think about his look, actually. He didn't know what shirt he was wearing today, let alone his state.

Clara tentatively helped him off the coat and was busy with rolling up his sleeve. How did she look like? He guessed she might have her tip of the tongue sticking out of those warm lips. Brows knitted together just a little in the concentration. She used to look like that, he thought.

"It looks better. Almost pink." He felt his coat handed back to him. "I've never asked what happened to you?"

"I might have very nearly become a lunch for some brutes back on the bazaar." He shrugged.

When he used to say things like that, things that happened to him, not very good things, her eyes would become inflated and caring. Were they like this right now? Or was she still angry at him because of the kiss? She wasn't easy to forgive as far as he could remember, so maybe she was.

"Sorry. I didn't mean that. I meant what happened to your eyes?"

Ah. She meant that.

The Doctor was looking for the proper word. "Umm, well. I did what I had to." He shrugged. "I saved a friend of mine. But this all had been kind of my fault in the first place." He chuckled bitterly and shook his head. And continued. "I was selfish. I had a promise to keep but, umm… I broke it because I was tired and reckless. Because I've never thought of the consequences. Because… because I just didn't want to think of the consequences."

"What promise did you give?"

"I had to look after someone very dangerous," he chose the words carefully as to not to mention Missy in Clara's presence – that woman had played with her enough to break the poor thing. "That someone was put in the vault for crimes and I had to guard it for a thousand years. But I grew tired after a hundred. You see, I was grounded in your place and I ought not to leave it. But then, it's an addiction after all. One that's not easy to give up."

They heard a monotonous sound of the ship gliding with grace through the atmosphere of the planet. They were almost close.

"Listen to me, Clara. It's important." He reached out his hands for her, wiggling his fingers just a bit to get her put her hands into his. She did, for his surprise, and he clenched them tightly. Soft miniature fingers. He traced the rim of her nails with forefingers. Short and neat. The shell so gentle. He was memorizing it all while he still got a chance. "Clara… Whatever it takes, whatever they do to us, I promise I will get you out."

"What do you mean?" She tried to snitch away her hands as if she couldn't bare another intimacy from him, the man who had used to say he wasn't a hugger, but he didn't let her.

"There's a big probability that we won't see each other much. They might separate us into different colonies. Or they might… Just wait for me and look around more often than you usually do, okay?"

"You're saying a goodbye."

"It's temporal. I think. I'll make sure it's temporal."

"No, we won't let them separate us, right? We'll get through this. Together. You're blind, you need me to guide you."

Of one thing he was certain now – she wasn't angry at him anymore.

"Can you promise me something, Clara?"

She didn't say anything, just tighten on his thumb.

"When Ashildr finds you, don't leave me on my own."

* * *

Bad. Bad. Bad.

What was?

Almost everything.

She couldn't find gold. She couldn't fix stabilizers.

She lost Clara.

And Clara was with the Doctor.

En route to Alendrona.

En route to Rubiri or Yuthyria or Noater or Ihines.

And there wasn't much she could do.

She tried to find some different way to fix stabilizers.

There were none.

She tried to take off without them.

She couldn't.

She tried to find gold somewhere on the TARDIS.

But then she found that they had one more problem with this type – it wasn't very helpful.

And now she was back on the bazaar, desperately looking for gold again.

Ashildr stumbled on it again, the big blue box on the crossing. It was almost midnight, long ago were gone shoppers and vendors. A Viking and a time machine, that's all that was left after the day.

She looked at it tiredly. "I guess you can't help me, girl, right?"

At that, the TARDIS opened her doors.

"Or, actually, you can..."


	6. Chapter 6

_She was scared and he was just terrified, only he kept it all inside him. Always good at hiding his real feelings, this incarnation was, quite a useful skill to calm her down._

 _"We'll get through this, won't we?" she asked him, her lower lip shaking with fear._

 _It was nothing. One of their adventures went wrong, that happened every time actually. With only one exception._

 _Clara Oswald had always believed in him, believed that he will save them even if it meant at the last moment. Well, she didn't believe in him right now, that part was quite clear in her eyes._

 _"Of course, we will." The Doctor smiled at her, screaming internally. "Together. I promise."_

* * *

 _4 months later_

The yellow dust was drawn through prisoners' nostrils. Four suns were blazing down this piece of hell, and all of them were aiming strictly at them, the chain of unluckiest of unluckiest. Or so it felt like suns were heating only them. She was certain of one thing, if she was still alive, she wouldn't survive this place. Not for two months. Not for two days. A human could never live here.

Shackles serenely screeched on her ankles.

They were transported somewhere far away from their place. They hadn't been told much. Jailers had stormed into her cell this morning, shouting something, escorting her to the other prisoners who were, just as her, uprearing their heavy legs higher to touch broiling sand less. Where were they going? To another segment. To extract commodities instead of rocks. Or so she was told by another prisoner.

A person was crumpling somewhere behind the chain, hurt and injured, and Clara tried not to think about him. She tried to forget how he had moaned when wardens had kept leashing at him. Until they stopped. He was slowly but becoming a hazy dot.

Two people were already lost.

"Water… please…" pleaded a woman in her thirties behind Clara.

Wardens were generous enough to let her drink, it seemed they were afraid to lose another workforce.

She felt dread overcoming her.

That woman was lost from their sight in an hour.

Now there were only five of them and they were approaching something yet too far away from their reach.

She'd been looking for the Doctor ever since they had been separated but to no success. She didn't know where he was, maybe he was on a different planet, maybe he was in the same place she'd left some hours ago and now they would never meet each other together. It was hard to say. She didn't let herself to slip an idea that the Doctor might be there, in a yellow prison settlement they were approaching. She could wait. They had all of the time for that, they were immortals after all. They'd definitely be together again, but maybe not now.

Yellow sand, hot sand, a smell of sweat and seclusion on the faces.

Yes, she could be patient…

* * *

They let her have a shower, they gave her brand new clothes in a strong blue colour. They led her to her new cell which had two neat beds across from each other, and she appeared to be the only occupant. For now.

And it was a free time on the courtyard, almost evening.

She felt whacked out and decided to stay in her cell. She approached a bed at the right wall, sat down, gave it a try. It wasn't as comfy as it looked like, mattress appeared too rigid, and blank got a few tears. She lay down on her spine. The pillow was just fine. Closed her eyes, tried to force herself to doze off.  
Clara couldn't. The Doctor and she, they used to save people from wars, from catastrophes so massive it was hard to count victims and damage if they actually had happened. And today, three human lives had stopped on her just because they'd been too devastated and weak to cross the desert. She didn't know anything about them but she felt that if the Doctor had been in that transportation chain, he would have saved them, he would have thought something up.  
The idea of saving them had been nagging on her all the time. She could have at least told something to wardens, make those three poor souls' lives valuable to them.

But she just hadn't. She was immortal, she could have pleaded wardens to punish her instead of them. She could have done something, she could have played the Doctor, not a frightened little companion of his.

She hadn't said a word.

She had been frightened, that's the word for it, and cautious. She wanted to get out of this planet, and that meant not to draw much attention.

But hadn't it just made her selfish?

She could have had it under control. She could have saved them. It was her fault that they had died, no matter for what they were sent here.

Shit, she was so bad at saving people!

"Are you Clara Oswald?"

A voice gave her a fright, and she quickly swept a tear or two on her face.

"Yes?"

There was a big bald man in the doorstep. Despite his massiveness and quite impressive muscles, he looked almost shy to enter her cell properly.

His voice was brute and gruff, you would expect it to thunder through prison but instead, he kept it as small as possible. "Here. I've been told to deliver you this."

It was nothing. Just a piece of a metallic junk, no bigger than a finger pad. Or so everyone would believe except her.

"What is it?"

"A message." The man shrugged, his whole body became a massive muscle to do that. "I've been told that you'll figure it out."

He's been told.

A beat.

"Thanks," Clara whispered to him.

She rolled to the wall and bent her knees to her chest so that anyone coming wouldn't see what she was holding in her hands.

A little thing.

She knew it was from the Doctor. It smelt like him, it felt like him.

It was a bit roundish with hard unpolished edges and got several wires stuck in random directions. Looked like a primitive handicraft for junior school, but she thought against telling that to the Doctor when they met.

Clara tried to comprehend what it was. It definitely wasn't meant to open. To add more confusion, it was made in haste. It didn't have a button, it lacked moving parts. The only thing that was there were three little holes. Maybe she had to shove something pointy in them. Like a needle.

She sneaked the message into the mattress quickly when she heard someone at her doors.

"Look at ye. A babydoll and sleeping."

She cast her glance to the voice.

Another male except skinnier and with no shyness in his hungry eyes. And no idea of privacy, for what it seemed.

He was towering her at the bed, smiling with all his teeth except for one lacking. Some kind of tattoo was under his left eye.

"Wow, I see you have a tattoo too here," he chuckled lifting up her hair between his fingers.

Clara snapped at them. "Don't you dare!"

"Zero, zero, zero? What's that suppose to mean, luv?" He looked at her with a quiz. "Don't get me wrong, I love it when it has a deep background in it…"

"Is it your cell?"

"No–"

"Then get out."

"So, you're a beasty one, heh. I love that. Friends call me Pepe. You can call me that too. And what's your name?.."

"Get lost, Pepe."

"So cheeky. I haven't seen you before. Are you a fresh blood?"

She didn't say anything to him.

"You are," Pepe smirked. "Well, you're probably just tired. I'll see ya tomorrow, babe. And I hope I'll learn your name." He gave her a blow kiss and was gone.  
As soon as he was gone, Clara took out the message from the Doctor. But when she did so, a siren went out. "Fuck," she swore into the pillow. Her cell shut automatically with a loud bang. She hid the message back into the mattress and didn't move.

* * *

It was about midnight when wardens stopped checking cells and she felt it safe to investigate the message further.

She turned it that and that, but it was hard to see anything in the dark. Until she got it close to her face and heard something incomprehensible. She put it closer to her ear and heard him.

"…don't know for how many times I have to repeat this, not like I know if you're hearing me now or have heard me an hour ago… gosh, if Barney mistook you for someone else I… sorry. Clara, meet me in the library at any time possible. Just… go to the library, Clara. I'll wait for you there… Library. It's about time we met in the lib-ruh-ree. It's also about time to sleep, but I don't think I can. Can you? I think after transportation you might be a bit dozy. And…" she heard a gulp on the other side. "I'm really sorry that three people died on you… I really am. Have I told you to meet me in the library? I think I have. Have you heard it? No idea. But if you're Clara, go to the library… I won't stop the translation until the morning. You should rest. Go tomorrow. And, Clara, if you received my message, which is 'go to the library', destroy the earphone. That's how I'll know that you received it. But you might think," and here he pitched his voice, very poorly mimicking her, "if he's so handsome and genius, why hasn't he inserted a microphone in it as well so I can speak to him? Because I'm still blind, Clara. If that thing is even working that would be a miracle… Funny. But I have to repeat it all again… Clara, go to the library. I'll wait for you in the library. Lib-ruh-ree–"

As far as she was pleased to hear his voice, as it was soothing her soul, she did what she was told. Clara put the earpiece on the floor and smashed it with her heel.

She hoped that somewhere out there the Doctor smiled.

* * *

The next day was just exactly like previous days she had at mining. But this time it was not some plain stones, it was precious metals.

A monotonous clunk-clang echoed through the walls, and she was walking with a trolley, collecting what others had found. When the trolley got full, she would push it back to the entrance which was far on the North from the depth. People would give her one hell out of a look which was saying they wanted to be in her place. She forced herself not to linger too long at difficult upsurges. The trolley was bigger than her, and it had slid down several times when she did.

"Need an extra hand?"

Clara had almost lost the trolley when she heard him.

She gathered her thoughts together, made a thin smile and shook her head once.

"No-pe."

Pepe put his pickaxe in the trolley anyway, moved Clara and pushed it up the corridor.

"Hey! Are you deaf?!" She grasped to his forearm and tried to pull him away to no avail.

"Don't freak out, babe. I'm only helping ya."

"I told you I don't need help from you!"

"That's because you don't like me. But I can see you're tired." He chuckled lightly, which made her only irritated.

"Am not." And it was true.

"Yeah, you are," he sang out. "If you want, we can push it together. What's your name?"

They were getting looks from the workers, and Clara felt a chill down her spine. What if they would call for a warden? She would be sealed in a custody with this brainless idiot and she had other plans for tonight.

"Don't you have better things to do? I think you're supposed to mine."

"I'll call it a break. So?"

She could see there was no point in arguing with him, a wampus.

"Clara."

"Didn't hurt, did it?"

"Tiny bit."

"Oh, you'll totally fall in love with me, Clara. Just give it a time." And he winked.

She winced, not of physical pain but of internal. Gosh, that was soo cheap!

"I think I can manage on my own from here, Pepe." It wasn't too far from the entrance.

Surprisingly, Pepe let her go, picking up his pickaxe from the trolley. "See you around." He turned his back and ran back to his position before a warden noticed him missing.

Yeah. Sure. Whatever.

* * *

A free time, finally. She found the library easily enough on her own, and surprisingly there was no one messing up with her.

Now she was standing in front of the wooden door with a 'library' sign. Behind it was the Doctor. If only she had a heartbeat, her heart would beat so hard it would be literally heard for him, Time Lords and their biological tricks.

She turned the metallic handle and entered the library.

"Clara?"

Here he was. Somewhere. And he knew that it was her, somehow, by the way she walks or breathes, or maybe it was just that no one went to the library in this prison as often.

She heard his hoarse voice and almost wept.

Finally, it was him, someone familiar to anchor. Four months with a desperate feeling riding on her back but no more. But where was he?

She noticed Barney, a massive bald muscle who had brought her the Doctor's message yesterday, in the corner of the room. He was reading something that looked like a comic book. He cast her a sideway look and nutated his head to the left, where another door was.

Clara cautiously entered a small darkish room, which almost looked like a cupboard with a table and two chairs, there was a lamp glowing a warm light. But its occupant didn't need that, it was probably lit for her.

He was there, sitting behind the desk, in the same stupid blue prison clothes she wore, he got his hair cut shorter than the first day after regeneration, his face lit. He looked much better than they'd previously met, all damages from Strakokkonians were healed. And his eyes were looking straight at her.

She dared to move closer, moving a sideway a bit, and his eyes moved with her. But could it be so? Or was it just she imagining things because of the lack of light? Was it a trick of darkness?

"It is you, yes?" He asked a tremble in his voice wasn't misheard by Clara.

"Yes."

"Good."

A beat. And then…

She swiftly encircled the table and took the Doctor by surprise, waltzing him in a firm hug. Almost knocked him out of his chair, he gave it a small chuckle.

"God knows how I got here, but I'm just so glad to see you again." She said in his ear, those words only for him, desperate to be said. She clenched for him tightly to be closer for him, her bum fell on his knees in the process but none of them minded. His neck smelt of salt and sweat and something alien she always referred to him.

Her hair smelt of home. He dived his nose deeper into her hair, his stoned arms moving to her spine at last.

"Well, I wouldn't call myself a god, it'd be a blasphemy, but I'm also happy that you're here." She could practically feel his smile hidden under her chin.  
Clara put her hands on his cheeks and looked at him properly.

"It was you?"

"It was me." He wiggled his eyebrows, making her laugh. The laugh he so much missed. "I'm working in the library, after all. Sometimes they let me work with papers."

"But–" _How?_

"I've got Barney, he's helping me after I taught him some Venusian aikido movements. He's got eyes, I've got mind and writing skills."

"They don't–" _Know?_

"No. Except for Barney, he had some questions." He enveloped his hands around hers and, dare she say, leaned closer into her touch as he shut his eyes and just breathed in. "But now you're here I might just make you my assistant, all we need is to convince the jail manager you can't work in mines."

"Then what?"

"Then we'll… plan our escape. I need maps and schedules but they don't trust me with them. Yet. We need to achieve that trust."

"We'll get through this, won't we?"

He smiled sadly then, recalling something from their happy days, a promise he'd given her once which was on her mind right now too. She couldn't stop feeling how her body felt right sitting on his knees, embracing him, breathing almost in unison loudly. She was looking straight at him and waiting for his answer. He, well, wasn't looking at anything. He expected her to stop him, after all, he was leaning into a dangerous area, but she didn't and he almost wondered why.

When he kissed her the second time after their little reunion, she had almost expected it. He had been, after all, getting closer and closer to her face a millimetre after a millimetre while she'd been scratching the nape of his neck nervously and waiting for him.

"Doctor…"

"Sorry, I… I'm sorry." He whispered only for her ears, scared that outside Barney could hear him and guess what had just happened. "I needed that." He embraced her closer to him, fearing that she might fade away. "You have no idea what it is to be locked inside your mind alone. The pain. It's… No, sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Forget what I've said. I-I-"

"Shh. I know. You don't have to tell me." She answered him in the same low voice. "I know. But I'd rather we don't do that again, okay?"

"Okay… Can I kiss you again and after it we won't do that again?"

Clara smiled sadly and put her lips to his forehead like he had used to do in his previous incarnation.

"Save it for the day we escape. And I want to hear your story."

"Wh-which one?"

"All of it."


	7. Chapter 7

The Doctor told her. Almost everything.

He told her about River. Not too much because it still hurt to remember her life had ended in the library with his tenth incarnation who had no idea how essential she'd been going to become in his life.

He told her he was a professor at the university nowadays, and he told her about Bill, a brilliant student of his, and Nardole, basically a pain in his arse but very helpful and nice chap in general.

He told her about adventures Bill, Nardole and he had together. Clara laughed, mostly. Her breath was tickling his nose in a pleasant way, so he told her funny stories more than the sad ones just to feel her breath again and again.

"I'd love to meet your friends. And sit one lecture of yours, I still can't imagine you as a professor, I just can't!"

The Doctor couldn't quite believe it himself.

"So, you liked Nardole?"

He couldn't stop thinking how right she felt in his lap, with her hand slightly brushing his short hairs, or what was left of it after shaving, on the back of his neck. It brought a pleasant tickle down to his body and he let himself enjoy it just much.

"From what you're saying he really cares for you, stop being so harsh on him. And I'd love to know Bill closer."

In the back of his mind, the Doctor also thought the reason why he had kissed her the second time when he knew that she wouldn't have accepted it. He knew that he cared for this little woman, and whatever made her happy made him happy. Well, that's how it had used to be, before the Trap street. He would let her date Danny the soldier boy, even when he had much disliked him. He would do whatever she asked him without question. Without reward. Without…

He cared for her, right? It meant he wouldn't ask anything from her. He'd barely had, back in happy good old days. She had been the one who started their kiss and hugs and so many things more. So what was it? This feeling crushing his chest when she wasn't around.

What was different this time?

 _Time_.

He thought he had learned his lesson. He had used to think he knew exactly what was best for his Clara, and he learned it was wrong, he'd been just selfish, when the neural block backfired at him. He had accepted the loss of impossible girl; missed her very much, yes, even fantasized them meeting again, but he had always respected that new space between them.

Oh, but now it was just so tempting to forget all what he had learned, be it for good or bad…

They heard a knock on the door, almost a shy one. Barney.

They ran out of time.

"Well, I think this is it. For today." Clara carefully slipped down from his knees, to the void that surrounded him, and he felt so weightless all of a sudden. And cold.

He tried to smile, just for her, to pretend everything was okay. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yep."

Casual. Like nothing had happened.

He heard her little footsteps being absorbed by the void and then, just like that, she disappeared from him again.

* * *

All the way back to the cell Clara was smiling, all her thoughts with the Doctor and how lucky she had been to find him on Zetta-2.95. That had been truly something magical happened to the universe, if it was generous enough to let them meet each other again.

But there was another thought nagging in the back of her head. That it was wrong, the universe shouldn't have let them meet together ever again for its own safety.

She thought about his first kiss, and the second. The Doctor was giving them a false hope that he would fix her oh-not-so-little-problem of being a walking dead. They should stop this. She mustn't fell for him so easily next time.

But…

" _You_ _have_ _no_ _idea_ _what_ _it_ _is_ _to_ _be_ _locked_ _inside_ _your_ _mind_ _alone_. _The_ _pain_."

With River Song gone, and no one who knew him quite well, and now with the sight gone, he was alone in this world. Not just feeling lonely, he had new friends from what she'd heard. But really alone, and it brought back memories of Trenzalore. Was it the same? Could she find it in her heart to be harsh to the person who was just clenching to the last warm straw which could satiate his cold hearts?

"I've been waiting for you."

As Clara heard his voice she froze at the entrance. In the dark corner of her cell, on the left bed, was sitting a figure of someone she hoped she'd never see again.

"What are you doing in my cell, Pepe?"

Pepe smirked and lurked out of the shadow.

"I've told you already. I've been waiting for you. What took you so long? Where were you? I couldn't find you anywhere!"

"In the library," she told him before she could stop herself. She would probably regret it later. "And it's none of your business."

"It is, luv, we are going to be together!"

Clara really tried to calm down. This man just wasn't the type who knew what the word 'no' stood for.

"We are not. Frankly, I don't know where you've got that idea."

"What? You can't just say no to Pepe!" And just like that he proved her previous thoughts.

"I think I've just did." She stopped in the middle of the cell and shrugged. "Go away. I'm tired."

Pepe then was dangerously closing the space between them. Clara was ready for another verbal fight with him, but when she recognized a feral hatred on his face she felt a sharp fear in her stomach, and it was too late.

Rashly, Pepe clenched at her wrists and slammed her against the wall. "You've found someone, haven't you?"

"N-no!" That wasn't the answer he was waiting for so she felt a stinging pain in her wrists when he clenched more strongly, powered with jealousy which was written on his face. "Don't touch me!" She was wriggling to no avail.

"And who is that, mmm? Is that Barney?! Is that him?! He's working in the library and… and… You know, he is retarded! He's a fucking vegetable! Oh, nonononono. No, Clara, why? I can't – Is that because he was the first to enter your cell?!"

"Stop, please, you're hurting me!" She was honestly scared of the man and couldn't think of a way to stop him. She tried aiming at his crouch with her boot but he was too close, literally pinching her into the wall.

"Why?!" He didn't listen to her. "You knew I had an eye for you, I was so gentle with you, I helped you in the mines, why would you want someone like Barney?!"

"I don't have anything with Barney!" Clara cried.

"He's a pet for an old man, he's a coon!"

"I DON'T LOVE HIM."

"You don't?!"

"No!"

"Oh. Sorry. I am… so sorry." Pepe let her go and ran before guards came to Clara's shout.

Clara succumbed on her knees, desperately trying to hug herself. She felt dirty and pitiful. She was immortal, literally nobody could hurt her much, she was the strongest creature on this planet but yet she couldn't do anything.

And Pepe wouldn't just stop it.

Clara tried to stop a lump in her throat.

Shewasn'tincontrolshewasn'tincontrol

Her hands were shaking as adrenaline was leaving her body. There were prints on her wrists left by Pepe's hands that would probably turn into bruises tomorrow.

What would the Doctor do if he was cornered? He would fight it. Even if there was no chance for him. As he had rammed at guards, blind and clueless on Zetta-2.95. He would use Venusian aikido if needed. Or sonic.

She was immortal but what was the point of it? She couldn't save the prisoners on transfer when they crossed over the desert, she couldn't save them, she couldn't save herself.

Pepe was just a bully, she tried to reason with her inner voice. You can't overdo a bully when he is in rage, you can only fight back later.

But that wasn't the reason, right? She was trying to be the Doctor, and she miserably failed on it so many times now.

When her eyes were dry again, she climbed on her bed and tried to sleep.

* * *

"So who is she?" Barney asked quietly so not to disturb those deep thoughts surrounded the Doctor.

The Doctor wasn't moving since she had left, as if by merely not moving he could save her sweet essence for a little longer. He was thinking of an escape plan, now that they were together at last, daydreaming of days long gone, and thinking of the way to save Clara's life, as the universe was so generous to give him the third chance to make it right. He thought he found one when Barney interrupted him.

"Can you keep an eye on her for me?" the Doctor said.

Barney was shuffling to the table, he could hear him closing the space. "Why?"

"Because I can't and I really need her to be safe. Surely you know how cruel can be people around here."

Barney knew it quite well in fact. "Very well, Doctor. But you didn't answer my question."

"It would be safer for her if you didn't know. Sorry." The Doctor shrugged with a sad smile.

"She's your wife," it wasn't a question.

Technically? He thought so, yes. They were doing stuff that only married people would do. Were they married actually? No.

"No comment, Barney," he smiled knowingly. "Now, what did our good old administration give us this time?"

* * *

 _ **Don't you worry guys. I'm alive, to prove that I decided to update with short chapter. The next update won't take so long (there's just too many going in the future. I promise it's worth waiting for).**_


	8. Chapter 8

_7_ _days_ _before_ _escape_

Clara entered a dining hall shuffling her legs tiredly. Her hands were hurt from working at mines and had marks on them from the previous day. She tried to look for a quiet place, where nobody could disturb her, but the place appeared to be too busy.

She watched carefully for Pepe. She had no willing desire to meet that bastard again after yesterday incident. But today she was lucky for she couldn't find him anywhere.

Clara got the food on her tray and sat on the table without much thought. She was staring at her porridge wondering what it was made of, tasting like a salmon but surely it was something alien. She gave it a sniff and regretted almost immideately.

"Clara?" She heard her name and became tense because she thought it was Pepe. But when her eyes dared to look who it was, it appeared to be the Doctor who was sitting at the same table with her. Something very heavy momentarily left her and she inched closer to him.

"Doctor! How did you know it was me?"

"Oh, when do I not know it is you." He smiled and was looking straight at her, giving the effect that he could actually see her. But he could not. Probably he had practiced a lot on Barney to look more convincing.

"Yeah, very flattering. Has Barney told you I'm here?"

"Yes." The Doctor nodded. His arms were opened, waiting... for her hug? But was it wise? She hadn't seen Pepe but he could be anywhere. And if he saw them together… no, he could not. She wouldn't let him. The moment he knew she had something with the Doctor, and not only her, he would be in trouble too. Adding to his state, blindness, it was a very dangerous luxury.

Damn that man again, she couldn't be close to someone she cared about.

So she took his hands in hers and put them down the table surface, where it was safe from everyone's eyes.

"How was your day?" The Doctor asked, not without sadness in his voice.

"The best day of my life," she joked bitterly.

They were stuck on this planet, weren't they? For all the time she was here, she'd never seen a ship in the sky, except for the one that had brought them here, and it landed far away from where they were now. In any different circumstances, screw the ship, screw the TARDIS, she knew the Doctor would make something up and save the day. In their best days, the Doctor would save everyone not only in this prison state in particular but the whole planet, and far beyond it. He would crush everyone who was behind this prison system and would change it for good. No TARDIS, no screwdriver – this was what the Doctor used to call a temporary misfortune.

Guess, it wasn't their best day, Clara chuckled bitterly.

She closed her eyes and thought. What would she do if she was the Doctor without his beloved time machine and the very handy sonic screwdriver? Consider the Doctor, a play Missy had taught her long years ago. Don't think what or why, always think how. How could you escape the planet with nothing more than a tea spoon?

His hands were touching hers, massaging stiff fingers and callosities, putting more strength where it was needed and releasing stress.

How would she save them?

"Barney told me you've got a bruise." The Doctor's breath was tickling at her shoulder. While she was thinking, he managed to embrace her in a somewhat side hug. "What happened?"

 _Shewasn'tincontrolshewasn'tincontrol_

"It's nothing, don't worry."

"He said it's new, big and dark. On your wrists." The Doctor carried on.

"Let's concentrate on getting me out of mines so I can be closer to you, shall we?"

"Can I touch it?" The Doctor didn't wait for the answer, cupping her hand in his. "Hurts, doesn't it?"

"Yes. And don't you dare using your regeneration on me." She added just to be safe, she knew he could do that without a single thought.

The Doctor was inspecting the bruise with his fingers, never letting his eyes drift from her face. It had an enticing effect on her, and she remembered quite a few times he had worn that look in different situations.

"Oh, believe me, my Clara, I won't." He dug his thumb into it, making pain growl in strong wave.

"Wha–"

"Clara, it's a bruise!" His other hand was shaking down her wrist to where the pulse used to be. She snapped her hand out of his reach.

"Don't you see? You must! You're the one who can! It's a bruise, Clara, a bruise!" He was drawing several funny looks from another prisoners.

She couldn't understand what he was fussing about, but when he said 'a bruise!' the third time and went bug-eyed on her she knew.

A bruise could exist only on one condition — if there was a blood circulation, that's what the Doctor was hobbling about. Except she knew about her new state a tiny bit more than him, she literally lived through that stage of decline, and she was so sorry for him.

"Doctor, I know what you mean. I'm sorry to say it, but it's temporary."

"You don't under—"

"I'm in a time-loop. I can be hurt, or I can cut my hair but it will all be reversed in twenty-four hours. There won't be any bruises tomorrow."

His eyes closed, and he'd gone silent. And breathed. She knew she hurt him somewhere deep, he had looked so relieved for a moment, dare she say happy. Clara thought if she really had to say it out so harsh and loud. But she had to make her small voice of conscience hush. Because if she hadn't, she would give him hope, something very dangerous in their case.

"Oh. Don't be. Silly me," he smiled sadly. But he was the Doctor, so he changed the topic as swiftly as possible. "I think I know how to break from the prison."

She was glad he didn't mention her bruise anymore.

* * *

The Doctor described her his idea without details, giving her just a base plain image of what he thought might work for them. He spoke without much enthusiasm in his voice, and frankly he desperately needed Barney to show up and take him someway, just away. He needed to think, he needed to consider the new information Clara gave him. She could take changes but only for twenty-four hours. Why twenty-four? As in a day? But twenty-four hours were working only for Earth measuring system. Was she bound to her home this way? Or what? What did it all mean to them? Was it good? Was there a hope to get her out of the loop without his original quite painful and gruesome plan? Why was she in a loop? To recharge? Recharge what, immortality?

Clara shook him out of his thoughts by asking, "What about the mines? How can we convince the jail manager to put me working with you?"

The Doctor instantly thought about her hands. Hard skin with moils, several cuts – one in the middle of left palm and two small cuts at her index finger of the right hand. Surely, tomorrow it would be alright, just as she said. But if her body didn't renew itself, what would her hands feel in his then? If this had been her hands after a one-day work, she would have suffered.

"I'm thinking," the Doctor promised her. Because it was all he could do for now.

They sat in silence, the only thing that reassured him she was beside him was her breathing, which was just a mere habit she couldn't give up. No light shield aura. No heat. No pheromones. He might as well had made her up back in the dungeon.

"Why are you so quiet, Doctor?" Clara broke the silence first.

The Doctor shrugged. "I've been thinking."

"You haven't touched your food." She observed. "You're all skin and bones, even skinnier than when I met you. You'll need your strength for what we're about to do."

"Are you caring for me?" The Doctor smirked. She put a spoon in his hand and shoved a bowl in another.

"Just eat your porridge, clever man. You'll find it delicious."

"Who are you lying to, miss Oswald? I was here long before you. It's disgusting."

"Eat."

"But–"

"I said eat it."

"Stop it. I've never liked it when you were bossy on me, and I still don' – " he was shut up with a spoonful of porridge which was just disgusting as he had remembered it.

"Good boy." Clara patted his knee in approval.

"Please, don't do that again, I can manage on my own." The Doctor said while he was chewing his porridge.

"Prove it to me then." He could hear her smile.

So he clenched a spoon in his hand, shoved it inside the bowl and heard the spoon reach its destination with a slush. On the second thought…

The Doctor sent it to his mouth.

Why had Clara freaked out about him using regeneration power on her? Did she know something that he didn't know? And if he used it on her, would it break the loop she's in? He must experiment firstly, of course. If anything, he could made it only worse, and if it could be done, she should grant him her permission. The last part was harder than experimenting, because from what he could understand Clara was in no mood to return back to life. His impossible girl faced the raven, he should be proud but he couldn't think of that.

He should think…

* * *

They met together again, at the evening, Clara was taking the same route to the library, never quit smiling. When she reached the corner, there was a face she hoped she would never see again.

Pepe was waiting for her with a cigarette sticking out of his thin lips and when he saw her he gave her a measuring look. "Damn, haven't anyone told you you look hot in blue!"

"Whatever you want, the answer is no." Clara said bitterly, hiding her bruised wrists in armpits.

"Oh, are you about our little yesterday fight? Every couple has one of them from time to time. You must get used to it."

"We're not a couple." Clara hissed.

"But we're! I've already told it everyone! They even congratulated me on that!"

Clara felt her self control slipping away. She clenched her teeth together and considered her chances to hide away from this prick.

"Are you going to the library? We could go together, you know. I like reading books."

She was about to say something but stopped. Clara realised in horror that if Pepe ever went to the library he might learn somehow about the Doctor, and she couldn't let that happen. But she had promised the Doctor she would be with him today and they would talk, and she desperately needed a cuddle with him after avoiding it in the dining hall.

Realising she had no other choice, she said, "You know what? I think I'll go to my cell."

"Then I'll go with you, my precious babydoll." Clara cringed at that one.

He was talking to her about something, well, something about him, but she didn't listen. All her thoughts were with the Doctor, and she thought what would he think. She wasn't giving him hope she would become his companion again, but she didn't want him to suffer in his loneliness. He was waiting for her.

They reached her cell, and by then Clara knew that Pepe wouldn't just get off her back.

She said no to Pepe again and he hit her, calling her a dirty slut. And then he left her, as if nothing had happened, wishing her a good night.

* * *

 _6_ _days_ _before_ _escape_

Clara was sitting at her table looking for the Doctor and watching carefully for Pepe.

She had to close her eyes for a moment and brace herself. Today Pepe had been after her again, in the mines, 'helping' her and talking non-stop about his self. And everyone had been looking at them like it was okay, giving them smiles and approving nods. Not like she knew those people and was worried what they would think of her. But Pepe had given them his smiles back. She was surrounded by Pepe's people, she had realised then, and it was a far much scarier situation than having to deal with him alone.

When she opened her eyes again, she was relieved to see the Doctor and Barney at the entrance, the Doctor just a little behind the big mass of Barney and close enough to him to hear comments about their surroundings. Having noticed Clara, Barney whispered something to him, only lips moving, barely any sound, and the Doctor became somewhat more hopeful, his spine stretched. Barney led him to her table, nodded politely and went to get them food.

He was saying nothing at first trying to find words. Clara was thinking to say something first but then was found speechless. Where should she begin?

"Why didn't you come?" It was breaking her faulty heart to hear something like this from him but, she decided, she couldn't tell him the real reason.

"They caught me and made me clean floors." She made a comical sigh like it was only five minutes ago. "I promise, today it'll be all fine."

"What's with cheek?"

"What's with my cheek?" Her hand darted to the place that still stung from Pepe's yesterday hit. "Ah, this. Nothing, just a bruise. Working in mines, y'know."

"Yeah…" She wasn't sure if he believed her but was grateful nonetheless when he didn't ask anything else. "Look…umm. Have you eaten?"

"Barely. Why?"

"You think we can clear off quietly?"

"Doctor?"

"I'm just a bit tired of Barney." He sighed uncomfortably shifting on the bench. "He's always looking after me and… not that I'm not grateful! But I will be fine on my own and he doesn't understand that."

"What about guards? Will they just let us go?" Clara's eyes darted to two full-armed men in protective costumes at the entrance.

"They know I'm working for administration. I don't think they have any reason to not let us."

"Okay. Should I take your hand?"

"No. I'll follow you."

When Clara looked back to the Doctor, he was going the other way from her. She made sure nobody was looking at them and called for him.

"Doctor?" His head turned to her voice. He probably realised his mistake because his ears gone red.

"Sorry, I forgot I can't feel your… doesn't matter. I'll take your hand." Clara took it anyway before he could finish.

Surprisingly, guards didn't even ask anything.

"Where are we going?" Clara whispered to him.

"Wherever you want. It's all the same to me."

"Can we go to the library?"

"Barney would expect us there. Maybe courtyard?"

She considered it, and thought it was too dangerous if she was surrounded by Pepe's people. Worse, Pepe himself could catch them together.

"I don't want anyone to see us," she said.

"Hmm. Your cell?" His tone dropped an octave and she barely trusted herself not to smack lightly his head.

"Don't be so cocky." She chuckled.

"How can I not," the Doctor smirked and winked at her.

* * *

He felt Clara's hand forcing his down asking him to sit, that's when he knew they were at her place. He couldn't stop from smiling then. Finally, he was with Clara, away from Barney and everyone else. He gently closed his eyes letting them rest for however much time they got and sighed.

"Tired of blinking?" Clara asked him coyly.

"Not something weeping angels would like to hear but yes." The Doctor laughed.

"You still haven't told me."

"Told you what?"

"Your blindness," she pronounced it somewhat quietly. "I know you can be reckless sometimes but you always get away from major aftermaths. What's gone wrong this time?"

"We had adventure together, me and Bill, Nardole too, just a quick trip to distress signal, a camping, fix things, get back to Earth, nothing difficult. The space station had no oxygen and we had to use suits to gain it. They were semi-automatic with AI system and Bill's suit rebelled all the time. Faulty. I should have seen it and do something… We found the crew. Or what was left of it. Others… were turned into walking zombies by suits, and they were more than eager to kill us."

"Suits?"

"Yeah. We needed to go to outer space to different section. And in an airlock it happened again. Bill's suit rebelled, her helmet had a malfunction, and it simply took it off. We had little time so I gave her mine."

"You were in vacuum with no protection."

"Basically, yes. I thought I'd be fine. TARDIS has appropriate equipment to cure any recent kinds of trauma."

Of all the things the Doctor didn't like when people felt sorry for him. However, she knew that and asked him something different.

"How did you fight suits?"

"Ingeniously." He smiled widely, so proud of himself.

He heard a door to the cell opened and a male voice interrupting them.

"Clara, I've brought you a present!" It seemed the man noticed him and stopped on his track. "Oh, sorry. That's your–. 'Kay, I'll visit you tomorrow, yes? Right. See you then."

The Doctor smiled. He had known Clara would find a friend sooner or later, but he hadn't supposed it would be that faster.

"Who's your new friend and why didn't you tell me anything about him?"

He felt a slight shift in the air surrounding them, something familiar he hadn't felt since a long time ago. He didn't know why he felt it or what was the cause of it or was it another hint he waited for to pull Clara's soul away from death's claws.

"Clara, what are you afraid of?" He asked very carefully taking her hand in his. She jerked away momentarily.

"I thought you can't feel my anything."

"I don't need a good sniff to know when you're properly scared."

"I was just surprised to see him, that's all," she answered him too quickly. Whoever he was, she wasn't in a mood to talk about him.

"Does he have a name?"

"Pepe. He's working at mines with me."

Something wasn't right, he could tell that. He was missing something. If only he could see Clara, he would know instantly what it was.

But Clara asked him to continue his story about rebel suits and he had to let it.


	9. Chapter 9

Clink-clank. Clink-clank.

Clara nudged the cart forward, pushing more force each time someone threw a new rock inside of it, like a pro basketball player without much care on his training. The walls of cavern hall were getting slimmer as she reached the dead end of the mines. Here, a few people worked on expanding the large underground net. Before she reached the end of it though she had plenty time to day-dream.

 _"Can you see him?"_

 _"No."_

 _"And now?"_

 _"No!" She cried exasperatedly._

 _The Doctor wasn't just taking it for granted. He chuckled, swaying his head on the back. "He might wait for me there."_

 _She couldn't help herself but smack him lightly at the shoulder, the closest thing she could reach. A daft old blind man was testing her patience. "Doctor, there's nobody in your cell!"_

 _"Aye, don't shout. What if he'll hear you?"_

 _"He won't because he's not there. Stop fussing."_

 _"I'm not. It's you who are shouting."_

 _She rolled her eyes at him. Not that he could see her, but he smiled-that bastard knew her too well to predict her reactions-and made his eyes blink three times in the row. "I might have forgotten to clean up, aye!"_

 _She had enough of it. It was bloody his cell, nothing special, and she was chaperoning him to it, which would be impossible unless every cell hadn't assigned number system. She took his hand and shoved themselves into it. He missed a step and stumbled, but transformed his clumsiness into elegant turn and saw the air with his arms._

 _"Voila!" He smiled as if he had made something very clever, something she hadn't understood yet but would appreciate his crazy invention later. "What do you think of my cell?"_

 _Clara gave it a quick not impressed look._

 _"Yeah, whatever, the same as mine. You don't have a roommate?"_

 _"No, I talked her out of being my roommate. Don't worry, she's only moved to the other side of prison from me."_

 _Clara chuckled at that, if he wanted he would chat anyone to death. But then another thing caught her attention._

 _"You can do that? Cells aren't segregated?"_

Yes, he had told her, if you have a very good reason, and no, if you don't have any serious reason not to. And she wondered if she could find a peace by taking proximity between them and cutting it in 2/3.

She was so deep in her daydream that she missed a boy in front of her, who was, just as her, working at collecting rocks with his cart, and she bumped into him, immediately saying how sorry she was and that if he was tired he could share some of his rocks with her. When he turned around and said something that sounded like 's okay', she caught a glimpse of his bright eyes of the color she hadn't seen before. They weren't just yellow, they were rimmed with hazelnut, and there was just a tiny bit hint of silver in his pupils and gold swirling inside of the left eye, reminding her of the regeneration force she had seen once taking the Doctor, and brown inside of the other. His nose was a funny upturned little snub. As she gawked, astonished to see so wonderful eyes, the boy simply said 'I'm so sorry, Clara' and continued his trail.

"Wait!" She left her cart to catch up with the boy and put her hand on his shoulder. "Do I know you?"

The boy didn't say the word, only stared at her as if he'd seen a ghost of the mines. But then his fear was winded away without any seemingly reason, and he said, "I'm afraid so, Clara."

Clara shook her head. The boy was claiming she knew him, but she couldn't find in any corner of her mind a memory with him. She smiled nervously worrying her lower lip, "I'm very sorry, but I can't remember you."

The boy carefully tried to smile, too, but it was hard for him to crook his thin lips and he looked like he was about to cry. "Don't worry, I do."

"Does it mean we will meet each other in the future? My future?" Clara asked.

He didn't answer. Instead, he began pushing his cart further.

As she saw him leaving her, he vanished in semi-darkness, taking the other railway from her.

She might as well had imagined him up because the hall was a straight line the dead end and there was not a sideway at all.

* * *

The Doctor was itching on his high-stool. Barney hadn't told him anything after his little yesterday escapade when he had taken Clara and just vanished to nowhere. And today was the day when Barney seemed somewhat resembled, like his days were gone to not be back again.

"Why are you so quiet, Barney?" He asked him, taking a pen from his table and swinging it with his knuckle bones. He was bored with silence and felt a bit guilty, not that he would ever say that out loud. The man probably had searched the whole prison looking for one blind man and must have felt humiliated after not finding one.

Barney wasn't answering immediately, as if he was offended and ignoring him purposefully, but then he gave the answer that made the Doctor lose his pen in nowhere. "Our days are coming."

"What makes you think so?" The Doctor asked after he gave up trying looking for the forever lost pen. So, he wasn't offended, he was worried over his thoughts. Good. His guilt slightly eased away and was gone when nobody watched. "You're in good shape, not so old, you never get ill."

"I don't know." The Doctor heard several muscles rub in the process of making a shrug. "It's just a thought."

"Will your days end tomorrow?" The Doctor asked nicely, playing with his ring which he well-hid on his first day. It felt like if he didn't touch anything he was lost.

Barney shook his head, which was just the same thing as shaking his whole body. The Doctor didn't know how exactly Barney looked like, but his neck must have been heavy.

"You don't listen, Doctor, do you? I said our days. Not just mine, yours probably too. Especially yours. Yours…" Barney was quiet as if he was looking for the proper word, "will hurt the most."

"What gives you this thought?" He asked, his curiosity suddenly taking the rein of his mind.

"I don't know. It's," Then the Doctor heard a chin muscle twitch, "I don't know. I'm only getting it, the thought."

"You never know, do you?"

"Can't you feel it?" Barney asked him in wonder. "You're a telepath or somewhat, you can feel other people present in the room and tell their approximate age, surely you must feel it."

"I'm very sorry, but I really haven't got the faintest idea what you're talking about. Have you got anything else?"

"It's like," Barney was lost for words again all of a sudden, the Doctor imagined him close his eyes in concentration on that curious thought, "an image of battle. Days are coming and they bring a bigger war. The war of Hybrid." Barney shook his head and simply took his words back. "I'm being silly. Probably scared you, yeah? Yeah, you seem like it."

"Barney, if you have any thought at all, even if it's the silliest one, can you please share it with me?" The Doctor whispered in a quite voice.

"Even if I tell you that what you're planning to do with Clara is dangerous and stupid and will hurt everyone?" Barney smirked.

The Doctor jumped from the stool almost dropping it. "How do you know what I'm going to do?" He could hear his hearts beating thrice faster, his curiosity being on fire and transforming into a cold fear.

"It's all over your face when you're sitting here. I've seen that look on many people who are dead by now. You're dreaming of escape." Barney places his hand on the Doctor's shoulder.

The Doctor obeyed reluctantly and sat back at his stool. It was close but Barney wasn't talking about what he had dangerously thought he would say.

"Relax, I won't tell anyone. I owe you. Besides, I don't think you care that much if your plan will hurt you. And I'm not your nan to fuss about you, for this you have Clara now." Barney didn't sound offended at all.

"All these days I was under impression that you resembled one of my friends. Thank you for not being him."

"My pleasure, Doctor." Barney smirked.

* * *

 _She_ was in **big** trouble.

Ashildr was fighting controls and trying to make the stubborn ship listen to her, which was hilarious in other circumstances. She couldn't understand why the ship wasn't obeying her and forcing them back on Earth.

"We need Alendrona to find where they sent these idiots!" The TARDIS made a noise which could mean anything at all. "You opened your doors to me, you promised to help me, what are you doing right now?!" She hissed.

The TARDIS, of course, didn't tell her, but did something that made Ashildr go ballistic: turned off the console room. A darkness fell over the room. Only Ashildr's desperate swearing could be heard in echo of the ship.

"Damn you!" She kicked the console with her shoe.

Then, in a mere matter of seconds, the TARDIS landed with a quiet, and even polite, knock on the ground. They landed on Earth, but just where it was? The console lights flickered back to life, and Ashildr reached for a handle of the scanner display.

Maybe the old wicked girl sent her back to her Trap Street. It wasn't clear what exactly she saw in the display, it was too dark.

Ashildr risked her safe spot inside the machine and left it. They were somewhere underground, she could hear a hushed water dripping on the floor. No, it wasn't just any underground, it was a basement. She looked around in search of something that would explain the TARDIS behaviour, suspecting that the ship couldn't bring her here just out of the blue. And she found it, because the doors were facing it, literally pointing at it and dropping inner lights at it.

The door.

Or could you call it just a door? It was a vault door several metres high, made of twenty rare metal alloys and something Ashildr had never heard of. However, the most astonishing about this door was not the door itself, a door can be made of whatever it wished to be made of and be quite happy with that, but a stunning number of locks. Palm scan, finger scan, eye scan, breath scan, DNA lock, number lock, image lock – you name it, the door had it in several copies. Which made Ashildr wonder what the hell exactly the TARDIS wanted to unleash if it was so secured.

"I've never been an expert of picklocking but I think that's the kind of door I would love to install for my secrets," Ashildr said in astonishment as she observed the vault door closer.

Nah, there wasn't a chance she could break it.

Just then she heard someone huffing and it was getting louder as the person was getting closer. Ashildr dashed to the TARDIS door, ready to hop in and send them somewhere away, but the door didn't yield to her. She could hear someone's feet hitting something metallic, a spiral stairs to the basement perhaps, and before she could be observed she hid behind the TARDIS, hoping with her heart that whoever that was he wouldn't care for something so huge as a police box down in his basement. Because, as Ashildr could distinguish one word from another, it was a male voice.

And he was not in the least happy.

"Its my holiday, Nardole, less than a day for all of you, you won't even miss me, Nardole," the man who was coincidentally called Nardole was hissing, "Go away, Nardole. You, sir, are in big trouble. And I don't care what adventure you had and how difficult it was for you and whether you lost a limb or two. I warned you, right! You have many enemies and they would like to hear all your whining." Nardole knocked on the door of the TARDIS. "Open it. Face me, idiot. I promise you nothing but hell."

Ashildr was holding her breath. This man… was he calling the Doctor an idiot? Well, he obviously knew what the TARDIS was, this one in particular, so that left her with only one option.

Nardole tried the handle but the TARDIS didn't let him enter. What was the time machine playing?! "What's that? Are you scared of me? You should be!" He tried it again. "Just what do you think you're doing?" He squeaked.

The TARDIS wanted them to get acquainted, Ashildr thought. It would be the only reasonable answer why she wasn't letting the Doctor's friend inside and keeping her outside. So, Ashildr thought, better to do what she wanted.

She started with a polite cough which frightened the daylights out of Nardole and gave him several grey hairs – if he had any. She left her safe spot behind the blue box and smiled. "Hello, my name is Me."

"Who are you!" Nardole yawped.

"I'm the Doctor's friend. And he's in _**big**_ trouble."

* * *

The Doctor was daydreaming in his chair, in the dark room of his cabinet in the small prison library. He was waiting patiently for a knock, that special knock that would bring his Clara to him.

There was a knock but not quite the one he'd been waiting for.

"What is it, Barney?" The Doctor asked. His voice lacked irritation because the Doctor knew Barney wouldn't have disturbed him for something trivial.

"About Clara. You told me to watch after her."

"Yes?"

"There is a saying…"

"Just spill it."

"That she is meeting with Pepe." Barney quickly ended his sentence.

The Doctor leaned closer, intertwining his bony fingers together in a lock. "I've met him once," he recalled Clara's scent of fear, "Alistair Fitch-Brown, yes?"

Barney sounded puzzled, "How do you know?"

He knocked on his scull with a tip of his finger, "I remember every name in this prison. Especially those who work in mines with Clara. What can you tell me about him?"

"Well, he has people amongst miners, many people. Has many tattoos on his face, so you can't miss him. And he's very dangerous lad."

"Ah, I like dangerous chaps. They're fun to play." The Doctor chuckled ominously.

"Will you need my help?" Barney asked not without a hint of curiosity in his voice.

The Doctor shook his head. And sniffed deeply. Interesting. "No. That's my and Clara's business only. And tell her to come in."

* * *

Clara was still in thoughts about the strange boy she met down in the mines. She was sure he looked familiar. Maybe someone she met in school? No, that would be ridiculous, the Earth was many many miles away, a little dot if any in the sky. Or maybe he was Ashildr's friend? Nah…

When she reached the door, she heard a small part of conversation, the Doctor was considering something as fun and said that something was their business and then he told Barney to let her in?

Barney opened the door, gave her a small nod and let her in the Doctor's chamber.

"How did you know I was here?" Were her first words.

The Doctor shrugged, giving her a somewhat smug and proud face in the darkness of the poorly lit room. "I don't know. Isn't it exciting?"

"I wouldn't call it exciting."

The Doctor made a face, "Can't I be happy for once? I can feel you! Only if it's dim." He chuckled. "How are your bruises?"

Clara knew the Doctor wouldn't stop thinking about resurrecting her, the least thing of all she wanted, but she decided to put it away for more convenient times.

"Healed. How is your plan?" She snatched back.

"Working on it."

"Work on it harder. What I've already heard doesn't sound very promising."

"Well, it's not like I can put down an escape plan on my TARDIS blackboard or any paper…" the Doctor purred the last world with a hint in his voice.

Clara couldn't help herself but smile.

"That's what I'm here for. To help you. Or have you forgotten that, daft old blind man?"

"No. How could I have?" The Doctor winked.

She found a blank piece of paper and a pencil and sat closer to him.

It wasn't the best plan, but it was something. She would argue with him, and he would sarcastically snap back but then shake his head in approval and whisper 'that might work'. She would write it down and draw quickly, not with the same elegance he once had, but it was coherent which was enough. He would furrow his deep wrinkles on his forehead, asking her to repeat everything they had came up with, and close his eyes to rest.

"Bullshit, yeah?" He would ask her.

But Clara would only shake her head and tut at him for swearing. Let's try again.

And again.

And he would. Until he began mumbling something incoherent with his eyelids closed, something about attracting daleks on this planet or cybermen. Clara didn't know what time it was, but it must have been evening already.

"Hey," she poked him lightly in his shoulder.

"Hmm? Am not sleeping." The Doctor hummed.

"You are."

"Not." The Doctor yawned. Clara embraced him in a side-hug, placing his head on her shoulder. Her fingers as if on instinct intertwined with his grey locks.

"Maybe we'll think something tomorrow?"

"I'm okay. I'm just in some wonderful place." She could swear she could hear him suck his breath when she hit one particular spot on the nape of his neck. "Oh, Clara Oswald," he purred, "are you really here?"

She chuckled. Was she really? "If I'm not, what will you do?"

"Wake up from a very nice dream, I suppose." The Doctor shrugged. "And run towards something dangerous, alone."

Clara chuckled at his honesty, and thought she must share something honestly, too.

"I've been thinking about you," she told him. "A lot, actually. When I fail to save someone, mostly."

"Ah." The Doctor puffed knowingly in her shoulder.

"How do you cope with it?"

"How do I cope with death?" He asked and sighed heavily. "I don't. There are too many people in danger, and you need to try to save them all. Most of them you'll fail. But there would be several to thank you, never forget them," He somewhat smiled, and she felt chills ran down her spine.

"What if I've failed too many?" Clara then asked bitterly. "What if there weren't several?" She could feel a tickle in her throat. She remembered those poor souls which hadn't made it through transition in the desert. She could have done something, the Doctor would have tried and stopped the guards, talked them through, persuaded to help them. The Doctor would have fought for them, if needed. The Doctor would have not been silent. She felt she couldn't stop it, the wave of guilt hitting the shores of her conscience. And the room became so big all of the sudden, and she felt so small.

She wasn't in control. She couldn't save anyone. She was useless.

"What if there were none?" She bleated.

"Oh, my poor Clara." He embraced her closer to himself, laying her head gently on his shoulder. No, she wouldn't cry. She wouldn't, in front of him. Maybe when she was alone… But then Pepe might appear, damn him. Damn them all.

"My poor brave Clara." The Doctor repeated it with such a gentle voice she could almost weep. But she wouldn't. She couldn't. Not in front of him. She would never show her weakness.

"I couldn't save them. Save them all." She told him. "I wasn't fast enough or clever enough. I wasn't good for them."

"Clara, you tried. That's all that matters."

"Good people don't try to be good!"

"But good people always start somewhere." The Doctor said. "We are not good or bad from the day we are born, we are not good or bad because of our parents, or society we live in, or language we speak. What you think and what you do all that should matter. It's easy as that," as he was saying, his hand stroked her hair. She wouldn't cry, she wouldn't, but she could feel first traces of wet tears bellow her eyes. "Oh, what have I done to you, my Clara?"

She hit his chest with her small knuckle angrily. "Not this again."

The Doctor chuckled lightly, "okay. It's not like we haven't talked about it, haven't we?"

"Yes, we have. And you know what I'm going to say." She wiped her tears away, but didn't dare to look at him.

"Clara, you're trying to play me. Nobody should ever do that."

"It's horrible to be you, I must say. You should never be alone."

"I know. That's why I've got you, isn't it?" He tried to smile a little reassuringly. But she would have none of this.

"You've got friends at uni, remember that. They are waiting for you, Nardole and Bill. They need you."

"Nah, they can wait. I'm not much use for them, anyway."

"Students?" Clara suggested.

"I don't even have a curriculum. I talk what I think and it's a lecture."

"You told me you had to guard some criminal in the vault," Clara reminded him. "You have to get back to Earth."

Surprisingly, the Doctor didn't fight it and nodded heavily.

"Will you come with me?"

"You know I can't, Doctor."

"Not for long. I'll just show you around."

"It won't be enough for you."

"But–"

"Please. It's hard for me enough to tell you 'no'. You know what will happen to the universe if we are together."

"Yes, sorry." The Doctor shook his head. "Will you stay with me just for today? Is that too much to ask? Just stay with me in the library for tonight?"

Maybe it was because she reached her limit when she could say 'no' to the Doctor, maybe it was because she was afraid Pepe would be waiting for her in her cell, or both at the same time, she nodded.

"Is it _yes_?" He dared to whisper hopefully.

She kissed him in the juncture between his neck and shoulder, "Yeah."


	10. Chapter 10

_4 days before the escape_

His hand ghosting Clara's hair, while she was dreaming, her head laying peacefully on the table. Barney warned administration they were going to stay late, so they'd been doing stuff for them, just checking lists and fixing errors when she dozed off.

The Doctor was thinking quietly.

He managed to piece together Clara's bruising, and rumors about her meeting with Pepe. He wasn't an idiot, even a Time Lord from High Council would have guessed it right too. The brightest sign of all, of course, was her fear. Clara was frozen between time, and yet the man made her so afraid for her life that it leaked through the crack between worlds of reality and unreality. He tried to make himself concentrate on that little piece of information – what would that mean? Can he use it to get his Clara back? Maybe she wasn't frozen completely or the nexus got weaker from her little adventures back to Gallifrey? But, the Doctor smirked, "there's always one 'but' around the corner, always", he couldn't stop one thought that would pop in his brilliant mind like a spam banner, with neon flashes and big arrows pointing at it.

She was hurt.

His other hand clenched in a fist. She was hurt and he knew who'd done it. That man who beat her just because his brave Cara had told him 'no' ¬¬¬– he knew exactly what Pepe had been asking her to do and it made him want to do things the Doctor should never do, should never think about. What sort of type would hurt another person? Especially if that person was a short funny woman named Clara Oswald?

His hand froze as he heard Clara whimper. Had she caught some of his unpleasant thoughts? She did it again and it made him worried. He placed a tip of his bony finger on her temple, just to ease her pain, Clara, his Clara must have had so many nightmares since they'd parted, he would just help her have a good one night. A tip of his bony finger on her temple, that's all that it would take.

Except, when he touched it, he stared at black pitch nothingness in the place where should be a tertiary of corridors with doors behind where must be memories.

And it might have given him a proper scare if he hadn't been used to it already. Instead, it made him even more worried about the woman in his arms.

Oh, Clara Oswald. What had he done to her?

He brushed an importunate lock from her face and put it behind her ear.

There was only one way to figure out what the darkness was about.

"Clara, wake up," he said.

He heard her breathing change and he let his hand hang awkwardly in space where her head had used to be.

"Oh, sorry! We were checking lists of prisoners, yeah?"

"What were you dreaming about?" he inquired.

"I won't tell you. Why?"

"Can I check something?"

"Why do you look like that at me?"

"Like what?" asked the Doctor.

"Like I am a very interesting exhibit in that old museum."

"Because you are? Interesting and mesmerizing and –"

"Stop it." She cut him before he could finish – not like he intended to. "Your flirtations have always been odd, and I will not be compared to a dinosaur bone scale. What did you want exactly?"

"Oh, you know, just a mind probe. Very quick mind probe. I won't look at your thoughts."

"Doctor?.."

"You trust me, right?"

"Okay."

"Okay? That's easy?"

"Just do it fast before I change my mind… I suddenly feel very tired."

There were colors, all of a sudden, greens and yellows, mostly darkish blues as if at his first touch, he had been colorblind and only now he could see so many different colors in her mind. He couldn't interpret them for his touch was quick but those were real thoughts, just one slip in his mind, so recent, yesterday perhaps, someone hitting Clara in mines again.

Turning off her mind while she's asleep and turning them back on when she's awake? That rang a bell to him, but he couldn't put his finger on what exactly it did sound like. Or he did if Clara hadn't given out another whimper.

"What's wrong, Clara?" he asked her gently, touching her by her forearm and pulling just a bit closer.

"N-nothing," she lied, snatching her forearm from his grip. She sounded… hurt? Definitely from the new bruise she'd got yesterday.

"Why are you lying to me?"

"I must have reasons."

"I know. You never lied to me just to be cruel… What are you protecting me from, Clara?"

"Your arch enemy. Yourself. Your curiosity in particular."

Why was she not telling him the whole truth? That Pepe was hurting her and hit her recently? That when he had asked her about bruises she had lied? Why can't she just tell him the truth?

"Fair enough." The Doctor nodded, trying not to give away his real thoughts. If she was hiding new bruises from him, then okay, he'll think of a way to unveil them. Then, something downed on him in an unexpected way, and he knew,

"Twenty-four hours have passed."

* * *

As he said that sentence, her heart sank. She glanced at her arm and inspected it, watching sideways as a tiny smirk crept on the Doctor's thin face. The bruise was still there, and that was wrong, that never had happened before. If anything, it got new shades, as if there was a blood circulation.

She darted to try and find her pulse, anticipating something horrible and desirable at the same time. She felt a cold knock in her stomach. If there was a slight chance, her timeline corrected itself miraculously by itself... A small hope rose. Of course, she wanted to live, how could she lie herself so much time! She placed two fingers gently on her wrist, pushed a little into the skin. Held her breath, if she had any.

He was waiting for her answer but there was still none. Clara cleared her throat.

"It looks better," she told him about her bruise. "and there's still no pulse…" The Doctor's smile spread wider, showing his teeth. "Have you done something to me while I was sleeping? Is that it? What was it, regeneration?"

"I haven't done anything." The Doctor put his hands in the air and confessed. "Which means…"

"Which means?" Clara inquired.

"I don't know… yet. You, keep your eye on that bruise and tell me if it's different."

"Doctor, what can it mean?" He sighed, his smile suddenly gone somewhere. "I really don't know. Maybe you're being tuned into this planet time regime. Or you've been dead too long so the link starts to weaken. Hard to tell right now… Aren't you cross?"

"What?"

"You left a certain impression your life ended and that's how it should be. Aren't you unhappy?"

"I – I don't know." She glanced at her bruise. The Doctor's hand gently wrapped around it, as if he could sense where it was.

"I want you to live, Clara. If it still counts." He added dubiously.

"It does, but you know I can't-"

"Of course you can just be with me; it's all I can ask of you."

"Wasn't it exactly what almost destroyed the universe? Me being with you? Me being irresponsibly dragged from my last breath just because you missed me?"

"I won't stop looking for the way to cure you, as long as you're by my side, I promise you. Just give me time."

"Cure yourself. I'm not the one who's ill." Clara snatched her hand back away from him.

"Clara," he chuckled. "Oh, Clara. Can you imagine how glad I am to hear your voice…"

She decided she had enough time with him for tonight and darted to the door.

"Clara," she could only hear when she closed the door.

She felt angry, for him giving her these thoughts of being alive again, and for being dead walking to hear him still missing her. It was painful and she wanted to give it a cry.

"Hey, Mrs. Oswald? Can I have a word with you?" Barney spooked her, even though being exactly in front of her.

"What do you want?"

"I've recommended you as the former teacher for my role of the Doctor's assistant," he told her. "We're being swapped, so now I'm working in mines instead of you. The Doctor was trying to find a way where I wouldn't be sent to mines, but there's no such way. He knew it too but was stubborn to admit." Very much like him, Clara noted.

"Thank you."

"You had a fight with him, yeah?" He glanced over her shoulder.

A fight, he was standing here all the time. He must have picked some of it.

"Oh no, it's temporal, really. We'll be okay in no time." She smiled politely.

"Well then. Keep an eye on him, won't you?"

"Sure. And thanks again. For looking after him."

* * *

Nardole needed tea. A very strong one. The finest one from ancient China. Or India. Or very much something stronger than that – a shimmied fizzy water right into his face.

Clara Oswald. He had never heard of her. Ever. The Doctor had never told him about her, never as much mentioned her name; there weren't any pictures of her in a frame. The TARDIS might have had on her something but when this little funny woman told him what the Doctor and Clara had been to each other a little quiet "shit" escaped his mouth.

They were in so much trouble indeed. And his hands were sweating.

"And just when I wanted to save them on my own, just pop in on prison planets and check for them – of course, it might have taken myself a little time – the TARDIS sent me here, to, what I must say, is a very interesting place for the Doctor to be grounded to." Me, a very strange name indeed, ended her little story.

"So let me check it again… the Doctor is with someone he loved, who is not River Song, who is dead, who also is his obsession, a little secret he hid very well from me… oh dear."

"Yep. That's the story. But I guess we have to be fully armed to make these two get apart from each other. If my calculations right, the Doctor started to figure out how to revive her from the moment he saw her."

"He's blind today, actually."

"It doesn't change a thing. The Doctor and Clara are together, and it's our duty to prevent it. Are you in?"

"Yeah? Count me in?" He said dubiously.

"Good. I'll try to find anyone at Trap Street. Do you know anyone who can help us too?"

"If you really know the Doctor that much, then you won't like my answer."

"You mean Missy?"

"Yeah. That one."

"Good. If you've got her contact that's first good news I've heard. She's absolutely nuts but she's the only one who truly knows what's at the stake."

"Maybe you should talk to her yourself. She's downstairs."

"Is this some kind of joke?"

"Yep, the one I don't like and which makes me cry at nights. I'll show you."

* * *

She was sitting in one of her comfy armchairs, sipping on her blood-colored wine and looking at the point on the wall.

She was bored. Very much. She thought it was some kind of punishment the Doctor came up with after she had made one of her wrong answers – just to entertain herself and pull his leg a bit. It must have been month already, the only one who was visiting her was Nardole and he wasn't much fun at all. She wasn't asking him what the Doctor was doing, not like her pride would let her and there was no need – Nardole told her he was busy with something. Or…

A peculiar smile crept on her lips.

He was hurt from one of his last little escapades, and afraid she'd use a moment of his weakness to mischief. Poor Doctor, he was so damn right.

But there was something in the air. A slight change in time, which had started to shiver two or three days ago. It smelled… interesting, new.

She ended her third bottle of wine, the last one from her collection the Doctor had left for her. A spot on the wall hadn't changed at all, perhaps she should have asked the Doctor for more toys to play with.

Speaking about toys…

"Containment field, please! A-and don't you dare to make tricks!"

About time.

Intertwining her fingers with a leg of the last goblet, she moved her light body to that little island with the piano in the center of her prison. Placing gracefully herself at the piano and crossing her long legs, she asked to come in.

Nardole was shy as ever, and – oh, what a surprise – he brought a friend this time. That was new, that never happened.

"Hi, my name is Me," the short little woman said. She looked young but Missy could see through her veil. She must have been older than the universe, which was nearly impossible.

Still, she didn't try to look impressed.

"Not very talkative today, aren't you, Master?" Nardole hushed at his little friend and made a little bow to Missy, which pleased her just a bit. "We, er, kind of need your help."

"We're on the verge of Armageddon, I presume," inclined Me.

That's interesting, they were asking for her help without the Doctor. My, my… what had he done this time?

"Do you happen to know Clara Oswald?" Me asked.

Missy smiled and quivered her goblet. Well, wasn't she a bit dead – according to some rumors, the Doctor hadn't got guts to tell her - to cause so much trouble?

"Yes, I do," she sipped viciously.

"What else you know about her?"

"She was a fantastic woman with a maniacal need to be in charge of everything. Oh, and she used to sleep with the Doctor. The poor boy is missing her terribly; he flinches so funnily every time I mention her."

"Well, he and she are together right now, locked at one of the prison-colony planets."

"Is she not dead?" Missy tried to sound bored.

"Not yet, frozen between one heartbeat and the last. For over 50 years already."

"Ni-ice." She grinned through her gritted teeth. "My girl is kind of dead but no, for over 50 years, and with the Doctor, who has a somewhat unhealthy obsession with her. Very nice indeed. But I don't see what you are asking for."

"The Doctor would want to resurrect her."

"So what?"

"Well, she's dead. Certainly, that can't be good." Missy smirked at their naive nature.

"She was dead for over 50 years and not dying, pulling her frozen moment of death across the time. That is what is very nasty for the universe. The faster she's dead or alive, the better, but I think the damage has been already done, so you might as well leave these happy idiots alone and me, like really _me_ , too."

"What do you want, Missy?" Nardole asked gently.

"Ah, now we're speaking my language! I want a quick trip with the Doctor. Just the Doctor and his Mistress, no one else."

"But–"

"Okay." Me agreed. "We don't have time to haggle, Nardole. And she might be our only chance." Missy smirked, that girl was clever after all, but not clever enough. And god or whatever ultimate creature they believed save them from the Doctor's furiosity.


	11. Chapter 11

She found the Doctor sitting alone at the table in the prison canteen, nibbling at his porridge with a spoon. As she took her food on a tray, she joined him.

He wasn't very talkative than usual, dare she say he was ignoring her. Clearly, he was still hurt from the row they had. So she was the first to broke the silence between them.

"It disappeared." She watched him for any reaction and she got it – he smiled sadly.

"Are you lying to me again?" the Doctor grumbled.

"No, I mean it. It just delayed. That's all." He nodded after considering what she just told him.

"You'll tell me when you get new ones, so we could observe them properly."

"Sure, I'll give you a shout." She told him. He didn't say anything back. She sighed. "Sorry, I shouldn't be so harsh on you, so mad about you missing me. It's only natural of you to miss me. And here I am, a ghost to torture you."

After what he heard he shook his head. "A torture was forgetting you, Clara." His hand hesitantly reached out for hers, seeking it in his dark world. Were they alright again? Of course, they were alright, they couldn't stay angry at each other for too long. So her hand was placed in the centre of his palm, and he instinctually wrapped around it.

"Can you remember everything now?" She asked him quietly, trying not to disturb much that little comforting agreement they'd just reached.

"No. Not everything. I still can't remember what you told me in the cloisters and that's very…umm" He was lost for words.

"Irritating?" She suggested and he nodded, giving up at his porridge and shoving it away. "I don't remember it either. It was a long time ago."

"How many years passed since I last saw you?" His thumb twitched giving away his nervousness, only to be masked with a gentle brush over her skin.

"I dunno. Fifty maybe. Maybe more. I've lost a count–"

"Aye, daddy!"

First, she felt slight sudden anger for being interrupted, but when she saw who it was…

When she knew who it was it was like her body was suddenly put in a cryogenic camera, and only in a side of her eyes, she noticed the Doctor flinch, his unearthly senses taking up on her first notes of fear.

Clara watched in horror, as Pepe was taking massive steps towards their table. She wanted to scream at him, tell him off, but she knew he wouldn't listen. He wasn't after her, he was glaring with fire in his eyes at the Doctor, and it made her terrified.

"Let us, two men, talk. If I can't persuade you, maybe your father can." He glowered with his teeth at her, giving a short wink.

That was a very bad situation, her mind racing in search of the best way out. But the only one was the door out of the canteen.

"Clara, what's happening?" The Doctor sounded almost curious.

Her small voice wouldn't do anything. She wasn't in control of the situation. "Pepe, don't–"

"Shut up! Let your dad speak!" She clearly hadn't any voice. So she watched as hell slowly unwrapped before her.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Pepe."

"Yeah, very stupid name, I've heard Clara quite well." The Doctor smirked. "What is it that you need?"

"I need your blessing."

"I'm sorry? Do I look like a priest? I thought they don't serve one here."

"I need your blessing for Clara. I want her, and I love her. You can see I'm a good match for her." He tried to sound a bit cheery, smiling and nodding at his muscular body.

"I certainly don't." The Doctor shrugged, giving him a false quick observation from tip to toes. "How long are you dating?"

That got on Clara's nerves. "We are not!"

Pepe gave her a hurt look which made her feel sick. His voice was cold. "Luv, we're dating since the first day you're here. No need for lying."

The Doctor shook his head, her hand in his was hurt from his strong grip on her. Then he stood up from the bench, leaving her hand, it felt almost empty without him. The Doctor gripped at the spoon in his other fist. What was he doing?! "You're hurting her."

Blast.

Clara felt ice creeping down her spine.

Well, he realised that.

Of course, he was the Doctor, he had quite amazing brains in his head.

He knew, he fucking knew where she got her bruises from and still hadn't told her a word.

Instead of telling how sorry he was, Pepe did something dangerous, he shrugged nonchalantly. "She was asking for it. She was saying no. Surely you would understand."

"No, I wouldn't." The Doctor's voice was harsh and pointy. "And I'm certainly not her father."

"Grandfather?" Clearly, Pepe was playing a fool, he must have been.

"You hurt someone I very much care for. I advise you to stay away from Clara."

"But I _love_ her!"

"If I see you near her again –" he tried again but was interrupted with Pepe's laugh. Clara was giving a look at two men between her, all she wanted to scream at them both to stop it, just stop it, Doctor, it's not worth it, defending her would only lead to something bad happening to him.

Pepe straightened up and spit on the floor. "What will you do? You don't look scary." Just then, Clara knew they were in really big trouble and that the Doctor should have been shut up.

"Oh, maybe I don't." The Doctor pursed his lips and waved his hands. "But there is a reason they locked me in a secured colony prison, don't you think?"

"Oh, I have a reason to be here, too, believe me."

"Hmmm, let me guess it. Pepe, right?" The Doctor straightened his shoulders just as he always did when verbally attacking someone. "Also known as Alistair Fitch-Brown, a drug dealer who was caught in the middle of his – what? – the fiftieth deal. Found with his peed pants down, mumbling some gibberish under his nose. Happy anniversary, by the way." The Doctor smirked and gave it a light chilling laugh.

"You're not her relative, aren't you?"

"No," the Doctor showed his white teeth, and though he definitely thought this Pepe must be really thick, his tone stayed as cold as an ice cube in single malt whiskey. He started rather gently. "You go near Clara Oswald ever again, and I'll unleash hell on you, I'll give you the worst living nightmare and several new reasons to cry at nights, I'll make everyone know what you really are and why you are here, I'll turn a revolution on you. Give me several days, and your life becomes a nightmare. Give me a fortnight and you'll beg for a merciful death. Of that, I can promise you."

"Then I'll have to make you shut up." Pepe tried to sound bored, but even she could notice the Doctor's words had their effect, "Is that all?"

"This woman here is protected, Alistair. Just think about it twice before you think of doing something nasty to her."

Pepe gave it a chuckle. "Oh, you're such a dumb old man. It's a pity I can't slice your throat right now." He left them with those ominous words hanging in the air.

"You, me, out of the diner," Clara whispered in the Doctor's ear and took his hand. They were in so much trouble now.

She led them back to the library backroom, the one where the Doctor was working for administration and the one she had run off that night. She helped him sit abruptly on the table, not caring for bruises she might have given.

She was about to slap her hand at his cheek, they were in so much trouble now, Pepe was going to kill him, he was going to kill the Doctor, but paused before it could reach the delicate skin of his. She tried to swallow a lump in her throat. Her fingers traced his cheek with a ghost of her slap. His face was clueless. No, she couldn't do that to him, not when he could only guess what was going around. The tip of her thumb just barely forced it against his cheek but nothing more.

"You shouldn't have done that." She tried to sound somewhat neutral, not giving up her anger and worry, failing miserably at it anyway.

"Why, have I done anything? I don't think so." The Doctor was looking past her, he chuckled and then scowled, inclining his head. "I'm certainly going to. He shouldn't have hurt you, Clara!"

"Well, now he can hurt you, knowing that you're not my dad. Is this what you wanted?" The Doctor was shaking his head violently.

"Clara, you don't seem to understand. This man gave bruises to someone who matters to me. If you really think I care about several might-be scratches and that my blindness will stop me, you are wrong."

"I care. Stop guarding me, you're not in a state for fighting."

"Clara–"

"No, just shut up," she pleaded of him. "I know everything you're going to say; we had the very same fight many times before. Don't."

"If you know everything I'm going to say, then you know everything I'm going to do." The Doctor was having none of it. "And you know I'm going to do whatever the hell I want."

"No, you're not. You're grounded."

He smiled at her then, baffled. "I'm sorry?"

"Barney told the administration he's tired of this job and doesn't mind working in the mines." She explained, hoping in her still heart the Doctor would soften his eagerness. "Swiping places with me. Now, officially, I'm your right hand."

"But–"

"If you don't behave, I'm going to lock you in this very room."

"You'll lock a blind old man?" he chuckled. " _Incredible_."

"Whatever it takes to get you out of trouble."

The Doctor shook his head. "I've spent years in a confession dial, some plain room won't stop me."

"Doctor, please, just shut up. This is no time for a brag, and you make my head hurt."

"Clara, I think you've forgotten something over 50 years of your adventures."

She sighed heavily, placing her arms akimbo. Impossible man. "And what have I forgotten exactly?"

"You forgot I have a duty of care of you. Yes, you're damn well right, I'm not in a state to do anything," he made a pause, brooding, " to be honest… the Doctor as you knew him is long gone and I'm nothing but a shadow. I can hear his voice, I'm living in his head, his hands touch the surroundings. He's not here, and this pathetic shadow can't even fight monsters. I can't do anything. I feel like a baby."

"You're not–"

"No! Listen." He abruptly made her shut up before she could say anymore. "Listen closely," he told her in a quiet voice. "There's a drum in the chest of this shadow, two heartbeats. These heartbeats are the Doctor's, they are mine. They haven't changed a bit. Listen," he grasped for her arm and placed her palm against his chest. "Can you feel them?"

She definitely could feel them, a soothing calming rhythm inside his chest. "That's all I am." His tone faltered. Her eyes darted at his face, which he turned away from her.

She thought she could grasp what he was showing her, clearly, he was failing at words completely because words weren't working on her. This was him, trying to make her understand that no, he would never stop making stupid things because they might hurt him, he was doing them to protect her and solemnly her. He cared for her too deeply, and what she was asking of him was impossible.

"You're…"

"Infuriating, arrogant, bastard?" The Doctor suggested in a low voice.

"Yes…"

"Stupid, bloody idiot, cretin?"

"Yes." She said more firmly.

"A little bit impossible?"

"My very next thought." She took his hand and placed it on her neck. "I care for you, Doctor, the same way you care for me. Imagine me being on your place and doing all these stupid things for you."

"I wouldn't have let you." He said without an afterthought. His hand was brushing past the juncture between her neck and shoulder, then back to the nape of her neck. "I would have locked you in this very room if needed."

"So we are stuck together in this very room locking each other, aren't we?"

"I so bloody missed you." He confessed.

"Me too."

* * *

A moment later, it was taking him some time to realise where her lips were, he crushed his lips on hers and couldn't quite stop. They were hopeless, each of them fighting over control, each of them risking own's life to protect the other. It was them and it was simple, and yet so difficult. He yearned for something, more of her lips on his, more of her in general. With his tongue clicking on her teeth he made her mouth open for him, still, it wasn't enough. He was lying to her, this wasn't a care, not anymore at least. He was hurting for Clara. He had told her that hearts were all that remained of the Doctor… but what if they were poisoned? Poisoned by Clara who was winning control over his mouth? He had been always afraid to lose the Doctor in him, dreaded the day which he always knew was ticking closely and closely. And yet here he was, losing himself to the impossible woman and was even more eager to lose himself for her.

"You sure?" He caught her saying between her shallow breathes. Had he ever been sure of it in the past? He had used to be shy and nervous, telling her off with lectures on primitive love and showing her off with awkward twitchy gestures. 'Later,' he would have said. Plain simple 'no'. Now he was so damn confident it was pretty scary. And yet…

"Are you?" He asked her, giving them just a little break.

She paused, leaving him worrying that by asking her such a question he stepped over the imaginary boundary, and then she leaned back, placing a soft pep on his bottom lip. That wasn't an answer, but he wouldn't ask for it again, to be frankly he was a bit afraid of the answer.

Clara's hands tugged at the hem of his blue t-shirt, her cold fingers brushing his skin lightly and giving light chills. Funny how things turned out, he had always used to believe he was the coldest one. She discarded his t-shirt with ease after then he heard her taking off hers. Oh, what the Doctor would give in exchange to the bliss of seeing her right now.

Then she was back with him, closing the gap between their bodies. The Doctor hissed and twitched at the contact of skin to skin. She was colder than him. Unusually much colder.

"Oh! I'm so sorry," she was immediately retracting from him but he snatched her back, embracing her cold body with a death grip.

"Don't."

"You'll freeze."

"I don't care."

Clara made her way to escape his embrace, and her hands fell to his cheeks, enveloping them. "You can't be ill for what we are about to do. Keep yourself safe. Do you hear me?" He nodded.

"You weren't so cold before," the Doctor noticed. Well, she hadn't got an answer herself why her body was shifting and changing lately.

Perhaps, it was because they weren't supposed to meet each other ever again, and that was the universe telling them to keep the distance. Maybe the link between her body in reality and her soul in the chasm of nothingness was wearing down and becoming weaker. It could be anything, but it all meant one thing, one very scary thing she was telling herself every morning she woke up:

One day it will be all over.

* * *

 _3 days before the escape_

The morning began with a loud clank of the cell doors being remotely opened. Her eyes fluttered open, Clara woke up, sit on her tough bed and stretched. Her body was hurting but not so much, and she knew she wouldn't work in the mines anymore, yesterday the guard came to her and told her officially what she had already known about the job exchange. She was surprised Pepe wasn't seemed anywhere near her already to haunt.

After a common shower, she decided she should visit the Doctor's cell in case he needed her help with anything. Then they could go together to the library and work on papers. But when she almost reached his cell she stopped.

She saw a man crumbling on his knees.


End file.
